Yahoo! Creates Research Lab

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January 20, 2004 (7:51 AM EST)

Moving ahead with its plan to drop Google's algorithmic search technology and install its own, Yahoo! said it will establish the Yahoo! Research Labs aimed primarily at inventing new technologies for its own use.

"The group will pursue a portfolio of topics that include pay-for-performance search, Web search, vertical businesses and platform technologies," the company said in a statement. Dr. Gary William Flake, former chief science officer at Overture, will head the new R&D endeavor. Yahoo! acquired Overture in 2003.

Yahoo! is on schedule to drop Google as its search-engine provider and substitute its own algorithmic search technology sometime during this current first quarter. Yahoo! said the new research effort will focus on core areas of machine learning, statistical data mining, and efficient algorithms.

Yahoo! said the short-term goals of the effort include work that will immediately add value to Yahoo!'s business. Long-range goals and strategy will focus on fundamental research and technology evaluation and transfer. The Research Labs will have some academic overtones, too, as it works to continue Overture Research's collaborative effort in publication, academic workshops, and conferences. Yahoo! said it will call on outside academic partners to work with the Research Labs staff.