Yahoo hasn't taken its commanding lead in the Q&A space lightly.  The Yahoo Answers service has continued to grow and now includes over 90 million users.  And today… they've turned it into a social network. 

The Yahoo Search blog announced that users of the Answers service would now be able to connect with each other to build their own knowledge networks.  Dubbed the Yahoo Answers Network, the new additions allow users to link themselves together and invite their friends to join the service:

By adding people to your network, Answers becomes a more personal, productive, and interesting experience, enabling you to tap into the knowledge of your network. There are two easy ways to build your network: 1) add anyone you find interesting in Answers simply by clicking “Add to My Contacts” – just mouse over their picture or go to their profile page; 2) invite your friends to join you on Answers. The bigger your network, the more likely you are to receive useful, timely answers to your questions from people who you know have the answers. In the end, Answers gets smarter for you because you’ll get smarter answers.

Loren Baker has written a very thought-provoking look at the new service.  But beyond that, Baker has outlined what he believes to the be the ultimate goal of Yahoo:  the merging of Yahoo properties into one, huge social network.  Yahoo Answers Network, he says, is just the first step.  If you look at Yahoo Answers from that perspective, Baker says, it now rivals MySpace and Facebook in terms of reach and member base.

It's a very interesting way to look at this.  And an even more interesting look at the future of Yahoo.  Baker may be on to something here.

I don't know enough to say that he's right, and Yahoo is moving in this direction.  But man if they are… it would be huge.  As he points out, the various Yahoo properties that could merge - Messenger/Chat, Answers, Flickr, MyBlogLog, Yahoo News, del.icio.us, videos/photos, 360 (which he forgot about) - would quite literally turn Yahoo into the largest, most content and user packed social network to date.

A couple of things Yahoo would need to do to pull this off:

• Consistency, consistency, consistency!  It's hard to argue that Yahoo isn't a diversified company with a lot of services.  They need to create a consistent look, feel, and brand image to bring all of those services together.  Just about every page you go to at Yahoo looks and behaves differently.  That should be addressed quickly.
• Integrate these properties and social networking abilities into their search engine and results pages… in a smart way.  It'd be very simple to clutter the SERPs with all of this stuff.  But Yahoo could, in theory, provide the most unique and potentially informative SERPs available if they started pulling information from more of their properties.  Throw in subtle social aspects, and suddenly even a simple search would have the potential to connect people.

Personally… I'd love to see a huge, connected Yahoo Network.  It would be unrivaled.  And with all of the possible marketing avenues available within that network, advertisers would be foolish to not fall over themselves to get in on the world's largest social network.  Search advertising would become but a single component of a much bigger opportunity.

For now, we'll take the Yahoo Answers Network as a good first step toward something more.  It should be interesting to see how popular the service becomes.  And if it really is the prelude to something more.

What do you think? 

For more information on the Yahoo Answers Network, check out the Yahoo Answers Team blog post.