Yahoo! has outsourced another vertical — dating (which is largely local) to IAC’s Match.com:
Match.com, an operating business of IAC (Nasdaq: IACI), today announced an agreement by which Match.com will become the exclusive online dating site on Yahoo!. Yahoo! Personals users will have the opportunity to move to a new co-branded Match.com experience, “Match.com on Yahoo!” where they will combine with the greater Match.com community. The Match.com on Yahoo! service is available starting today.
Yahoo! Personals users will receive special offers designed to help them enjoy all that Match.com has to offer. The two companies are working together to help users easily migrate to Match.com on Yahoo!. Over the next two months, existing Yahoo! Personals members will be given the opportunity to seamlessly migrate their Yahoo! Personals accounts over to the new experience. Match.com on Yahoo! offers compelling features including mobile access, daily personalized matches and robust search tools and will fully replace the existing Yahoo! Personals experience at the end of the transition period.
This is now part of a pattern that includes search, shopping and other verticals. In a way its smart: pick the best-of-breed partner and then let them worry about product development. It’s part of an overall cost-containment strategy. Yahoo! gets the content without the engineering costs.
The company has decided there are a number of strategic areas that it needs to keep in house: news, sports, finance, among a few others. I believe that Local is also on that list.
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Related: Yahoo! announced a relationship with coupon/direct marketing vendor Valassis last week:
Yahoo! is entering into a partnership with leading media and marketing services company Valassis. The partnership will expand the online advertising options available to Valassis’ clients, providing them with Yahoo!’s customized targeting solutions for reaching the right customers in their communities. Valassis’ clients will further benefit from the ability to access premium online display advertising inventory from Yahoo!
The partnership is a key component of Yahoo!’s greater strategy of working with local partners to help them reinvent their business and provide them with the tools they need to maximize their online spend.
Screenwerk 
May 24, 2010 at 6:01 pm
I was thinking about all of their recent moves in this direction lately. Outsourcing of search, coupons, content, dating, etc. etc. It reminds me of another company that turned 25 this week, AOL.
AOL, once the powerhouse of access to content as well as the content, is down to only about 5 million dial up subscribers (and dropping, according to NPR this morning) and telling everybody they’re just in the content business these days.
The problem I see with this is that there are so many other sites that are already in the content business and actually have a better brand for that task. Just wonder if there are enough eyes to go around.
May 24, 2010 at 6:05 pm
Yes, the question is how do you remain distinctive if you’re a collection of other people’s content — other than just being a kind convenience destination . . . a kind of wal-mart of content.
August 26, 2010 at 7:16 am
My Husband and I have improved our affiliate promotion business and we have been researching to find good outsourced workers. I am checking the net for some advice for this.
Should you have any connections could you refer some? Thanks.