It is no secret that Facebook needs to find a way to monetise and that Yahoo needs to close the gap on Google. My proposal for a Yahoo and Facebook partnership that might address both problems is as follows:

• Yahoo to provide an in-Facebook web search facility with an agreed ad-revenue split between the two. You are probably wondering, why would people search in Facebook instead of on Google or Yahoo directly as they currently do? Well read on.
• Offer the ability to quickly turn an in-Facebook search query into an “in-Facebook, Yahoo Answers question” – a question that you can choose to publish for all your friends to see; send to specific friends on Facebook and/or send to anyone who has registered an interest in answering questions on the relevant subject. What’s in it for people who answer the questions? Read on.
• Enable people to rate answers and based on such ratings, allocate points. I think Yahoo Answers does this already but in addition, give the points some value in Facebook, such as linking them to some sort of Facebook currency that can be used to purchase or access premium stuff in Facebook.

We all know that nothing demonstrates intent online better than search and that this is why search is the best platform for serving ads and generating revenue from Internet advertising. We also know that Facebook is struggling to monetise because although it knows a lot about its members, it has precious few applications or functionality that demonstrate intent. As Andrew Chen so excellently put it recently, “don’t confuse Interest with Intent… interest in a topic is different than having intent. Having “skiing” on your profile is completely different than searching for “ski tickets.” The latter means you’re ready to buy, whereas the former simply means that you sometimes buy.” Robert Scoble also made a similar point in a recent post about Facebook.

With such a partnership as I have outlined above, Facebook would have found a way for its members to express intent, whilst Yahoo on the other hand might stand a decent chance of converting a sizable portion of Facebookers from Google to Yahoo Search.

Update: So it’s Microsoft and not Yahoo (nor Google) that has partnered with Facebook. No reason why the above search/answers partnership still can’t be done by MSFT and Facebook – it just means that rather than leveraging Yahoo Answers, FB would have to develop its own Answers app and integrate it with a MSFT-powered web search. Perhaps a 3rd-party app developer can even do the answers bit and reap a potentially very big reward.