Yahoo! Canada paid a visit to us out here on the west coast last week and held an invite only event at the Opus Hotel in Yaletown. To sum up, the evening was all Panama: Yahoo's upgraded search engine advertising platform, built to improve their search advertising business. It was clear from the beginning that this trip to Vancouver, and their intention at this unveiling of the Panama Project, was concentrated around the sales and advertising. But in having an early peek at things, the interface has a fresh punch, there is some pretty sophisticated geotargeting, wait-time will be cut down to a mere 2 minutes (ish!) for ad approvals, and hey, generating more of a presence on the left coast is a *good* thing - this came up a few times...

In catching up with Kerry Munro, Yahoo's GM, before the presentation kicked off, I learned of his personal mandate with the new project for the every day user: to ensure the service and interface is ultra user-friendly for all the Granddads out there. (My tech-savvy Nana will be so thrilled!) I also asked him where they got the list of invitees... bit of a mystery I gather - still looking for that answer.

(I'm still a tad bitter that Boris Mann from Bryght beat me BADLY in a post to sum up the occasion and night, and so he should - he blogged live on his handy Nokia E61!)