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 compet-
itors 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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