IDGNS: Could you provide an update on Search Monkey?

Sample: It's available in a limited developer beta, as announced last week, and in the coming weeks it will be an open developer beta.

Initially, the Search Monkey API is triggered off the URL. A user would install an application that would look for specific things in the URL and then it would augment the results from that URL using Search Monkey.

For example, instead of seeing a Wikipedia link and a snippet, you could call back to Wikipedia and show a photo, get more context about the article, maybe even present some of the external links or the edit history, whatever would be interesting.

So initially it'll be switched on URLs, but later, we've talked quite a bit about the semantic Web, the ability to leverage structured information in the search result itself. So in a Yahoo Local business listing, the business can put structured information about itself as part of the result.

Other kinds of matching for applications might be triggered by keywords. I might have installed Search Monkey applications that look for results with "travel" as part of the response, and it might pull up destination information from across the Web and build up a travel portfolio.

IDGNS: That sounds useful for end-users, but how do you strike a balance between richer search results and Web publisher concerns about too much of their content being exposed and discouraging people from clicking over to their site?

Sample: Striking that balance is a big priority. It's been an even larger priority in considering impact on ad revenue. Sometimes if you give better search results and the answers can be found there in context, you might not have as many searches that are being issued because users are getting to the information right away. But we've decided to put search quality above any of the other considerations. If users get the information they're most interested in as quick as possible, then everybody wins.

IDGNS: Still, there's an ongoing debate industrywide over "when does a search result cross the threshold of fair use of someone else's content."

Sample: That's an interesting issue, and Search Monkey will let us evaluate the impact of these changes for the user. This is revolutionary, not evolutionary, for search: The ability for a user to install an application that remixes the results and takes [search] from a fairly static programmed experience and lets them pull all sorts of other possible information sources. As we learn more about it and users give us feedback, we'll have a discovery period; and based on the things we find, we'll refine to the greatest extent we can. The opportunity is tremendous.

IDGNS: What will happen to your existing social networks, Yahoo 360 and Mash?

Sample: We believe in our 360 community. It's vibrant and thriving. The users, even knowing that 360 is going away, have stuck with it, because they've invested their time and created rich profiles and connected to a lot of different people. We're going to preserve their [time and effort] investment. We'll carry their profiles over and take their connections over into the new product. Same thing with Mash.