What is the Point of Yahoo! Buzz Index Results Showing up in the SERPS ?

At some level, if I was that 3rd advertiser it would piss me off. On the other hand, it draws more eyeballs toward the side of the page that is a struggle to generate clicks. I can actually see how a new feature would increase CTR's for that spot until the new feature was part of the overall blindness.

Right. I'd think more people would actually look at the right side now. I would bet the 3rd advertiser would be doing better with this than without.

I wonder when Google or Yahoo are going to flop the positioning, and start putting the paid column on the left, given the eye-tracking research and how the English speaking world reads from upper left to right...

I came away agreeing with the previous two posters to an extent... because the constant updating (annoying) Buzz index draws your eyes over to the right side of the page... But it takes up so much of the screen real estate on the right hand side that you only see 1 or maybe 2 paid ads above the fold.

And if my intent is to buy, do I really want to be distracted by non-relevant buzz listings?

I still can't see advertisers being happy with some of the buzz results above their ads.... Especially, let's say that I am a major brand and have placed ads only to have the searcher select one of the Buzz results for say one of my competitors... who is being showcased on The Apprentice tonight... which has a tie-in with Yahoo which has an affect on the Yahoo! Buzz index (one assumes).

It would be cool if they had buzz related to the query though....

or at least useful for anything else, like seeing the search volume for terms etc. but no - all you're getting is 10 useless queries at the top...