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.

Yahoo Developer Network leader Chad Dickerson also disclosed an extra incentive for approved developers. Applications that drive new members to the premium service, Yahoo Mail Plus, will earn the developer ten dollars for each referral who joins. Developers building applications for Yahoo Mail Plus will have access to the full set of features available through the API.

Yahoo recently unveiled its new Digg-like Suggestions platform that, at least in theory, allows users to propose ideas and invites the community to vote on the ideas they’d like to see Yahoo implement.

Dalka learned that the first rule of Yahoo Mail is you don’t talk about Yahoo Mail — at least not negatively. After Dalka brought up issues with Yahoo Mail’s spam filters, the Yahoo Suggestions community chimed in with support. Apparently, Yahoo thought more aggressive spam filters were a terrible idea, and deleted the suggestion altogether, saying “the suggestion was not actionable by the owners of the Suggestion Board.”

Yahoo may think weblogs are a bad idea too, as that’s exactly where Dalka took his cause. He said, “If this is going to be the normal procedure of Yahoo Suggestions, I now have serious concerns about the success of the Yahoo Suggestions initiative.”