Expanding the functionality of the "answers" market, in which it now is the leader, Yahoo yesterday turned its Yahoo Answers community essentially into a social network, according to Internet Marketing Monitor.
Yahoo, in adding the social-network facets to Answers, is encouraging members to add friends and other contacts to their personal Yahoo Answers Network. Doing so, the company says, means users are more likely to get the answers they need.

But some have speculated that Yahoo's unstated goal is to turn the entire Yahoo user base - across all properties - into a social network. The merging under one umbrella of the various Yahoo assets, including photo-sharing site Flickr, bookmarking site del.icio.us and a host of others, would give the company unprecedented reach.

Though future plans are subject to speculation, the ability of Answers users to add contacts to their personal networks has the potential to make the tool even more powerful for those who rely on it.