<http://schema.org/articleBody>
"Yahoo has a new facebook app.  It's called Friend Sense, and it's a product of the research arm of Yahoo, called The Human Social Dynamics group.  The point of this application is to get to know your friends, and yourself, better.  Through a series of yes or no questions, you can indicate particular beliefs you hold, and guess what your Facebook friends would say on particular issues as well.  Remember that book called \"The Book of Questions?\"  It's a lot like that.  \nWhen you first sign onto the app, most of the questions will be directed to you.  \"Do you side with the Palestinians more than the Israelis regarding the war in the Middle East?\"  \"Do you approve of laws that deny U.S. driver's licenses to illegal immigrants?\"  Not all the questions are this serious.  Others are a bit more whimsical, or just weird, like \"Would your friend eat a hamburger if he had to kill the cow himself?\"  Questions directed towards you and your friends are intermittent, and you can choose a friend in particular to answer a question about.  If that friend has answered the question, you'll see the answer.  If not, you can invite them to answer it.  Questions can be skipped, and your answers can be hidden from your friends if you'd like.  \n\nAs a result of all these questions and answers, everyone gets to know about everyone else a little better, including Yahoo.  I hope you don't lose any friends over this, but it's an interesting study of psychology, economics, statistics and sociology.  Whether this collective data will ever be used for search or recommendation purposes is unclear, but the movement towards utilizing such data for these very purposes is gaining steam.  At DEMO alone I saw two companies, Redux and Delver, that are aggregating data for unique search and discovery purposes, both of which rely on your standing within the larger social plane in which you exist on the web. \nInsert Obligatory Microsoft-Yahoo Commentary Here:\nIn the larger scope of things regarding Yahoo and its stance in the market right now, it's been made clear that the bid from Microsoft was in fact unsolicited, but I might as well take the opportunity here to note that Yahoo has been far more willing to integrate with other platforms and applications as of late, meaning the company is in fact testing out a new strategy for survival, while also managing to amass the data that it can use for the refocusing of its own platform later on down the line."^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://mashable.com/2008/02/01/yahoo-friend-sense/>