Silicon Valley and Wall Street both bash Yahoo a lot these days, but if there&'s one place the company has excelled it&'s in Asia. Its Alibaba investment alone is one of the best deals made in the Chinese Internet, and Yahoo Japan is propping up even more of Yahoo&'s stock price. Yahoo also has local portal strongholds throughout Southeast Asia, including Indonesia where it has also been one of the most aggressive Valley companies &8211' employing more local staff than competitors and even doing the first Valley-acquisition last spring with a location-based services company called Koprol.

Yahoo&'s director of global initiatives Michael Smith (yes, another one) has been a big reason why. I caught up with Smith during my trip to Jakarta and asked him what Yahoo has done well in Southeast Asia, what Indonesia has going for it aside from a large population, and about the Koprol deal.

Yahoo is pushing Koprol locally and regionally. Already, it has prime-time television commercials&8211' a first for Indonesia according to blogger Rama Mamuaya. There&'s a long way to go in a country intoxicated with FourSquare, but Korpol is the closest thing to a local rival the big social media companies have in Indonesia. If it continues to soar under Yahoo, it could give the country&'s nascent Web scene even more confidence.

Apologies for another hand-held video that&'s a bit hard to hear. That&'s life on the road without a camera crew. Next trip, I&'ll invest in an external mic.