Yahoo’s strategy of outsourcing a string of its businesses—including Personals—has some former employees rankled. Here’s an excerpt of a blog post by Susan Mernit, who led Yahoo (NSDQ: YHOO) Personals for two years ending in 2008. (Via Online Dating Insider):

Match taking over Yahoo’s Personals category is a great idea if you believe that the unit was on life support, being run for 18-24 months as a cash cow to capitalize on traffic till the earlier investment paid back. It is a great idea if you believe Yahoo! should focus on a small set of core businesses and divest of things that are distractions (though, 2 1/2 years out of Yahoo! I have no idea what those core business area [sic]). And it is a great idea if Yahoo’s best plan is to be an aggregator and make $3-4 MM a year in affiliate referrals via partner payouts for customer acquisition rather than manage greater revenue against greater cost. But is i(t) a great idea? Not really, But Yahoo! stopped having great ideas a long time ago.

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