Cody Simms, Senior Director of Yahoo! Social Platforms and Anne Toth, Vice President and Head of Privacy led this session.

Historically, there have been several Internet phases:

-Editorial: Editors would curate available information and place them in "buckets"/categories in order to make it easier for the everyday user to find.

-Communications: Email became popular.

-Search: Google and others helped Internet users find what they were looking for by typing in keywords.

In each of the above phases, Yahoo! has been a leader/in the top three providers.

The newest phase is social sharing where users share the things that they find and discover with multiple people simultaneously (i.e. Facebook and Twitter). Shopping is another phase that is currently big in Taiwan and Vietnam at the moment. Although Americans do shop online, it is still not one of the biggest uses of the Internet for American consumers. (Interesting...)

In any event, Yahoo! does not want to become a social network. Rather, they want to make it a part of the Yahoo! experience. That is why we learned how Yahoo! is integrating new functions across their various line of products. Users can now share their comments, ratings, polls, buzz and such both across the Yahoo! brands as well as on Facebook and (soon) Twitter. Also, Yahoo! updates (mail, messenger, home page, profiles, etc.) will also connect to the two. Lastly, users can also see their Facebook (and soon) Twitter streams on Yahoo! properties (Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! Pulse, Yahoo!'s homepage, etc.)

These changes lead to new social opportunities for Yahoo!

The plan is to increase reach with social distribution. An example that was provided was how Yahoo! recently acquired Citizen Sports, a property that publishes solely on Facebook.Yahoo! has 80+ products that they can socialize. They are working on some plans to create social participation by users sharing across platforms (but I won't "spill the beans").

2. Drive engagement on Yahoo! (especially since the users are already there).

They will drive engagement by aggregating social media across Yahoo! (For example, Yahoo! users can update their Facebook status from their Yahoo! Mail account already.) They provide a unique combination of social media and content and have some (private) plans regarding pulling in related content across social and content platforms. *Note to bloggers: Your MyBlogLog updates are already showing up in the feeds of your Yahoo! friends.

3. Monetize

By using all of the various pieces, Yahoo! will be able to amplify social messages for advertisers in new ways. (More private concepts were shared.)

Then, Cody spoke about "The Social Flywheel". Basically the four areas are production, distribution, consumption and conversion.

-Production

This is where you give the reader an opportunity to do something. Sample improvements in Yahoo!'s new updates include: rating television shows, reviewing television shows; readers being able to give thumbs up/down, etc..

-Distribution

This is about who sees it. With new changes, there will be more social activity (Twitter, Facebook, etc.)

-Consumption

What can "seers" do with it? They will be able to comment/like updates across channels.

-Conversion

What happens as a result of the reader's consumption? A reader can comment on an update which can lead them to a related article that tells them what their Yahoo! friends are saying and gives them a chance to respond back.

At the end, we saw some practical demos of a few Yahoo! properties that utilize social media products: pulse.yahoo.com, mail.yahoo.com and Yahoo!'s home page.