[earl]

I think Y! Research has contributed

(1) hadoop enhancements (a friend works there on exactly that), which are a nontrivial cost savings given the size of Y's deployed clusters

(2) ad matching tech, which should be considered of the highest priority, given that Yahoo's business model is to make money off advertising. Small improvements in matching <users, stories, ads, context> can easily lead to material improvements in earnings

Why Y! doesn't consider the two above things important is beyond me. Also, one of their recruiters sent me an email this week! Dude has big old brass ones, that's for sure.