Yahoo Upgrades Personals – Does This Stuff Work?

Yahoo Personals is the largest dating site on the Internet (Match.com is second), so when they make a move, others in the industry notice.

Today they will announce a new feature called Quick View, and it’s designed to let users scan for potential mates more quickly. Instead of scrolling up and down to view profile information, members can simply select from fifteen different traits (non-smoker, enjoys traveling, etc.) and call them date “makers” or “breakers.” They can then view profiles organized by whether or not they include a deal breaker. It’s a good way to weed out those undesirables more quickly.

Certainly this stuff helps some people find a match. But basic human nature seems to be more visual when it comes to attraction. People don’t necessarily want to fill out an excrutiatingly long personality profile to help them sort through potential matches, then to find out there’s no physical attraction.

That’s why I think sites like HotOrNot’s MeetMe service and its web2.0ified twin, YesNoMayB, which we profiled in October are doing so well. You can scroll through hundreds of people in a few minutes, click on those you want to get to know and learn more about them. If the other person flags you, too, you can chat and go over all the non-visual stuff that determines if people are compatible.

Sheer volume is important when it comes to dating sites, and Yahoo, Match.com and the others will continue to do well. But there’s a lot of experimenting going on in this space, and some of these quirky business models are going to be successful, too.

What’s your opinion?