Yahoo! to Flip Panama Quality Switch on Feb. 5

In an announcement that caught many search marketing advertisers and professionals by surprise, Yahoo! energized a conference call about its Q4 results yesterday by declaring that it will give Project Panama, its new search-ad platform, a full launch ahead of schedule.

Yahoo! CEO Terry Semel said the company is ahead of plan in moving advertisers to the interface for its new platform and expects an early February launch for the second phase: the introduction of a quality score to determine the most relevant