Tomorrow, Wednesday December 20th, Yahoo Personals is launching a variety of enhancements to member profiles. New Sr. PR Manager Jason Khoury send me details on the upgrades, as well as an overview of the last six months of new features.
Among the enhancements to the Web site is a new capability called Quick View, which offers a new way for daters to efficiently browse profiles.
- Yahoo! Personals daters no longer have to scroll up and down to compare a profile owner’s information with what he or she desires in a match.
- Members can select from 15 different traits and characteristics to create their own personalized checklist of deal breakers – or in this case, date makers or breakers.
- No one else in the industry gives users the capability to personalize and customize their view of matching traits.
Quick View is a part of a visual refresh of the most viewed page on Yahoo! Personals – Profile Details. The redesign includes:
- Personalized view of profile data: The searcher can list the attributes that are most important to him/her at the top of the profile page for an easy, first glance at a profile.
- Side by side presentation of a person’s profile and his/her ideal match: No more scrolling up and down to compare. When viewing a profile, users can easily scan the profile owner’s information as well as what he or she desires in a match. A way to quickly identify if both people will find each other interesting.
- Clustered profile data: Profile data is divided into relevant categories – an easier and more intuitive way to scan for important information.
- Improved visual appeal: Visual refresh creates a more pleasant online dating experience.
The launch of Quick View is just one of many feature upgrades launched by Yahoo! Personals in the last six months:
- Virtual matchmaker – Mailbox Matching: The mailbox automatically sorts incoming communications by how well the sender matches the recipient’s preferences. It compares the information included in the sender’s profile with the things the receiver marks as “must havesâ€? for their potential match, like religion, ethnicity, etc. Ones that are a fit are placed in “Matchesâ€? folder, and messages from someone that isn’t an exact fit are sent to the “Maybe’sâ€? folder.
- Online bouncer – Email Masking: To protect its customers, the mailbox now masks email addresses included in communications to non-subscribers. This feature protects users’ anonymity.
- Who’s Viewed Me: Yahoo! Personals provides the online dating community with the broadest and most empowering feature for making a connection. Offered to both posters and subscribers, “Who’s Viewed Me� fosters additional communication and user activity by allowing customers to see who has viewed their profile.
While I’m glad to see Yahoo adding features, much lot of what Yahoo Personals is rolling out are things that should have been taken care of two years ago. The email masking was particularly problematic, glad that’s fixed. Interesting they didn’t mention the new page about safety.
Yahoo is showing their commitment to improve the service, which should help drive signups and make the service easier to use.
