Q: Do you consider the gaming and short message service (SMS) sectors to be the stars of the industry?
Yang: Yahoo now acts as a distributor for online game developers, which enables our users to order gaming products and form social networks. As for the SMS sector, we have worked with local telecommunication carriers to provide the service, but Taiwan charges high rates for SMS, so I think we will work with telecom providers in other fields such as data transfer, auctions, e-mail and instant messaging, in the view that the wireless Global Packet Radio Services (GPRS) is likely to be widely adopted by local cellphone users soon.
Q: Are you satisfied with Yahoo's online advertising income since online ads are considered a powerful marketing tool?
Yang: I'm pleased with the cash brought in by online ads, but there is still huge room for growth. The coverage of the Internet is so high that consumers on average spend 20 percent to 30 percent of their time on the Web. However, advertisers outlay merely 2 percent to 3 percent of their advertising budgets on the Internet.
So we will keep boosting this sector. One achievement is bringing in more small and medium sized enterprises to use our Web-search advertising, which posts advertisers' Web sites alongside search results and charges by the number of hits they receive.
Q: Spam has become a major nuisance in cyberspace. How do you perceive this problem?
Yang: I think the issue needs to be sorted out by technology. Several companies have invested in developing anti-spam software. Second, the industry needs to seek help from law enforcement, from both local governments and national governments, since it is an international issue. Yahoo and major Internet companies including Microsoft Corp, Time Warner Inc and America Online on Wednesday filed lawsuits against hundreds of spammers in the US under a new law. I hope the pattern will soon be adopted in other regions.
Q: What do you plan to do after you retire from Yahoo?
Yang: I think I will be a Yahoo lifer, since I still have a lot of passion for it. The Internet is becoming the most important medium, because it is unrestricted from time and space. The Internet revolution has, and will continue, to bring profound influence on people's life and culture, making it more potential than the time I established Yahoo. Therefore, I will keep contributing to this field to explore the potential of this technology, as well as my own brainchild, until I'm too old to move.
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