YAHOO! PERSONALS MERGES WITH MATCH.COM

Two of the largest online dating providers, Match.com and Yahoo! Personals have joined forces to become an online personals behemoth. The details of this gigantic merger can be found here. To summarize, Yahoo! will now make Match.com available from the Yahoo! Homepage. Existing Yahoo! Personals subscribers will be migrated to Match.com. The result is that Match.com will be nearly doubling the size of its user base. The larger membership will mean more available singles at the site and the consolidation of Match.com and Yahoo! Personals means that users only need to join one dating site now (instead of two) to get access to the same number of other singles.  But is this really good news for the end-user in the long run? Let's look at some common questions and see what the long-term effect will be on the online dating horizon.

What Happened to Yahoo Personals?
This is probably the first thing that many people will ask themselves when they click on the 'Personals' Link from the Yahoo! Homepage and are directed to Match.com. Since the two sites have been competitors for such a long-time it may seem odd that they have merged, but it seems that it is all part of Match.com's business plan of strategically acquiring competitors.

When will these changes take effect?
These changes will take effect gradually from May 19, 2010 through July 21, 2010 when Yahoo! Personals will officially close. Click here for specifics.

Click Here for Match.com's FREE 7-Day Trial

Now that Yahoo! has Outsourced its Personals Service to Match.com, what will this mean for Existing Members of Yahoo Personals?
Existing Yahoo! Personals members will be migrated to Match.com. At this time, we do not have any specifics regarding how current memberships will be treated. It is our assumption that current Yahoo! Personals memberships will be honored. You may read about specifics of the transition to Match.com here.

Is the Merger of Yahoo Personals and Match.com a good thing for Online Dating?
There are a couple ways to look at this to try to determine the long-term effects. The fact that Yahoo and Match.com have joined forces means that Match.com has almost doubled in size overnight. With the influx of new members from Yahoo's Personals service, there are plenty of fresh faces now at Match.  Online daters will now only need to join Match.com for access to over 9 million single men and women. Consolidation in this respect is a good thing, but there could be some long-term negatives for the online dating community. Read on to see what the negative effects of the merger between Match and Yahoo Personals could be.

Could there be any Negative Effects from the Consolidation of Match.com and Yahoo! Personals?
As Match.com continues to grow and either merge with, or acquire, its competitors, this means less competition in the online dating space.  When there is less competition it is usually the consumer who suffers.  Let's look at a simple example of an immediate effect of this merger. When Yahoo! Personals was competing with match for members, each provider was forced to come up with new and better incentives to encourage online daters to join their site. At this time, Match.com is still currently offering a free 7-day trial, but there is no guarantee that this offer (or others) will exist down the road. Additionally, there is now less pressure for Match.com to keep its prices low, relatively speaking. Finally, with a user-base that has nearly doubled overnight, there is no guarantee that Match.com will be able to adequately handle all of its customer-service needs at current staffing levels. Presumably, Match will have to expand its customer service division, but we haven't seen anything in print regarding how Match will handle its now much greater size.

What Should Current Yahoo Personals Members Do?
If you are currently a member of Yahoo! Personals, you should not see any interruption in your service as you (and other members from Yahoo Personals) are migrated to Match.com. Despite having access to communicate with over twice as many members, you will have to become familiar with the Match.com user interface, features, and other aspects of a brand new dating site environment.

Will there be any Effects on Current Match.com Members?
As far as we can tell, current Match.com members should not notice any difference as a result of Yahoo! now outsourcing their Personals service to Match.com. As mentioned above, there will be brand new members at the Match.com site with whom to communicate.  Again, our main concern is with Match.com's customer service and whether they will expand this division in time to handle the increased membership base.

Click Here for Match.com's FREE 7-Day Trial

In Conclusion

If there was any doubt before about which online dating site was the largest personals provider, this recent merger between Yahoo Personals and Match.com should leave no doubt in anyone's mind about which site is the largest online personals site in the world. MATCH.COM has quickly emerged as a powerful force in the online dating space. Before you join any online dating site, we recommend that you read our article, How to Join an Online Dating Site to get an insider's perspective of what to look for when evaluating different online dating sites.

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