Talk with Qi Lu on Yahoo Search Strategy at HYSTA

In previous post, I said Google and Yahoo have different strategy based on the analysis of their acquisition. Yahoo acquired many media companies like flickr, bix etc while Google acquisition is focused on ad platform(doubleclick), content platform technologies (like jotspot and sketchup) except YouTube.
I talked to Qi Lu , who heads the Yahoo Search at HYSTA 2007 Annual Conference. I discussed with him the above observation and asked,

me: "if Yahoo develops into the online media monopoly provider and blocks Google to crawl Yahoo content, what does Google search/index?".
He answered, "we are blocking them now", which surprised me;

I asked, "from the acquisition observation, Google is really focused on search, which limits itself into search ads, while Yahoo bought so many content providers, which focuses itself on banner ads. It looks for me that search ads are more effective measured by Cost Per Click than banner ads measured by Cost Per Impression. How do you think about it?"
Qi responded, "Search ads is over. You can see it from why Google bought DoubleClick".

I asked, "isn't it just a defensive strategy?"
Qi, "of course not".

I'm not even close to internet advertisement expert so that I don't have any judgement on this. But my impression is internet advertisement is till at the very early stage because I am still seeing there are more and more innovative internet advertisement technology providers. Baynote, for example, which is founded by former HYSTA president. I think internet advertisement technologies are still infant comparing with other computer technologies like robot.

I also talked to the other Yahoo Search up management person, who made the comment that Yahoo Panama project might not meet the expectation.