Yahoo: The Social Search Engine?

I'd say one of the key differentiators that you've seen released last year, and Terry Semel actually talks about this, is that we're starting to introduce social search. If you look at Yahoo Answers, it's one of the key examples of that. It's a very exciting site that's performing very well.

There's a lot of great press around it, and we starting to integrate that within the search experience itself, so you can do certain types of queries within search and at the bottom of the page you'll see relevant best answers that are brought from Yahoo's Answers. In many cases people look at that and say that it actually adds value. That's one of the key differentiators here; there is definitely a social aspect to Yahoo Search.

But really, how does Social Search enhance search, you ask? I think the following analogy captures the essence of that synergy. There are a number of raw materials required for the creation of "art". The raw horsepower of machinery has made the refinement and access to these materials increasingly easier.

But, no one would argue that simply blending these materials together results in art. It takes the human hands of an artist to create beauty and meaning. You need human talent to bring those raw materials together in a holistic way to create something that no machine could ever produce.