Risher starts out by saying, “Email is and remains [to be] the killer app for the Web.” As he explains, everyone uses email and need it since it is a prerequisite for many new services now offered on the Web, such as social networks.

Yahoo is trying to enhance the communication aspects of email in order to make it a definitive destination for users that promotes direct messaging. One of the recent ways the Sunnyvale-based company is doing this is through a Facebook Contacts Import feature. It allows users to pull all their Facebook friends/contacts into their email. Risher says the company has been working on social services for some time and that this is just the beginning of what’s to come.

As email continues to get so many social features, WPN asked Risher if email would eventually turn into a social network. Risher says a social network works well when users want to broadcast something out. Email, on the other hand, is more controlled, trusted, and direct. While Yahoo will continue to add social features to email when they are appropriate, Risher says it will not replace email with a social network.

In regards to spam, Yahoo’s mission is “for all users to receive all the mail that they want and none that they don’t.” Yahoo blocks over 1 trillion spam messages each year and in 2009, reduced spam that reaches people by 35 percent.

Recently, Yahoo Mail has added many new features that allow users to send money via PayPal from their inbox, schedule evites, and organize their messages into categories.  Risher says users could expect similar features in the future.

McCann is the CEO of Gist, which “helps you build stronger relationships by connecting the inbox to the web.” He told Abby Johnson, “I think what’s changing very rapidly is just basic communication.”

McCann then gave one broad example by explaining, “There are social features coming to email and email coming to social features.”

Specific instances of this crossover cited by McCann include Google Buzz, Outlook Social Connector, and Salesforce Chatter. The fact that Facebook shifted app notifications to email says something, too.

All in all, McCann believes that “the overlap or combination of multiple forms of electronic communication” is “the place that’s most interesting to be playing in.”

Public Knowledge, a public interest group, has been examining the case closely. WebProNews spoke with Art Brodsky, Communications Director of Public Knowledge, about the situation. Find out what he has to say including what advice he has for consumers as reported by Abby Prince, right here on WebProNews.