Yahoo and MyBlogLog Merging Logins for No Apparent Reason
Sep 27th, 2007 by msdanielle
When I went to login to MyBlogLog today this is what I found:
I only have one Yahoo! email account, which I already know doesn’t match my MyBlogLog login, but I enter it anyway to see where the system takes me. Here’s where I end up next:
So I enter my old email login (Gmail!) and password and am directed at a page indicating that my two accounts will be merged. Here’s what the confirmation page looks like:
Going into my MyBlogLog account settings, I find my Gmail account is still listed as my contact email, and when I log out of MyBlogLog, I’m still logged into my Yahoo! mail account. Therefore, I’m left to wonder, why the hell did they change the login!? This is one of those annoying changes, wherefore its decision was most likely based on a marketing decision. Ahh…thanks for letting me rant.
On a lighter note, upon glancing at my screen shot, I see some familiar faces. 
Hi Kiltak! Hi Jimi! LOL
Did this move annoy or perplex any of you this morning??
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I have to admit that I got a bit pissed abut it
I think it’s awesome! Isn’t it?
I was too! It really irritated me….
But, I guess that it allows you to login one time for all of your Yahoo services…
I was a little piss at first but now I’m ok with it.. At least there’s more security when you enter your sign in name and pw now!
I expected something better, merging logins has no point other than more confusion. Well lets give time to time
I actually noticed this a couple days ago (at least I think it was a couple days ago) and am not very happy with it :S
According to what I seen from them (I think they sent out an email, but it might have been on their website) they basically got tired of helping people who forgot their passwords and decided to “outsource” that portion of it to Yahoo.
So far I haven’t had to merge my account though because I have a window that had it logged in before the merge so I’ve just left that window open for now. I’m glad to hear that the merge process is pretty painless though.
Surely this merge is not to help existing MBL users, but to promote MBL amongst yahoo users?
Single sign on is the way to go with this stuff, look at Google, one account and you can do everything.
It will be interesting to see what else gets integrated with MBL. I hope they get to keep their own identity. I dont fancy having to pick my way throught a yahoo portal to get to MBL.
Im still a real fan of MBL, I think its great, except the mass mail thing they implemented, that was a bit silly IMO.
i prefer to keep all sign-ins separate, that’s just me. but i’m not completely opposed to it. but when you log into MBL, you use your Yahoo mail login, but it doesn’t log you in and out of your mail, which is what i was trying to get at. it’s still separate. they’re just confusing things with this move
I take the opposite view on that, when logged into gmail I can go to webmaster tools, adsense, adwords etc without having to keep logging in, I think its a lot easier, particularly as you do not have to keep completing different sign up forms with your personal details.
I do worry about having all my eggs in one basket so to speak, if my account got cracked Id be in real trouble….
If Google had MBL Im sure it would have worked better
Oh yeah, do you subsribe to MBL premium?
HMTK.com was comparing recorded clicks in MBL vs Adsense and reckoned that lately there has been a big discrepancy with Google recording far fewer clicks.
He said that in previous months the figures were close, and he reckons it is the Google figure that has drifted.
His hypotheses is that Google are penalizing referrals from social media sites. At first I did not see how they could track that, but realised that most of the social media sites run adsense, so in theory they could do it (I think).
I don’t really have an opinion on the matter at the moment, I don’t really see why targeted traffic from social media sites is worth less than any other kind of referral, but I thought it was an interesting observation on the part of hmtk.com …
i did notice that pretty immediately, since sometimes i would have the most clicks appearing from my google adsense links. since i’m not as familiar with adsense as some other people, i sort of let it go. if i had a site that depended on adsense, though, i’d probably be more astute about what’s going on…
Yeah Jim has the cheesiest avatar
it’s very 1980s-workplace-orientation-video-esque… lol
We could have done a better job of getting the word out. We posted about the move to Yahoo authentication several times (http://mybloglogb.typepad.com/my_weblog/2007/09/one-less-passwo.html) but didn’t resort to using the community messaging when, in hindsight, we should have. Lesson learned!
As for the reasons - a large part of it was to save Robyn (our community manager) from frying out. About half her time was being used up on simple “lost my password” type requests and she was near going cross-eyed.
As for Jez’s concern about our identity - don’t worry - you’ll always be able to find us at mybloglog.com!
Ian Kennedy
Product Manger, MyBlogLog
hi Ian,
thanks for dropping by and leaving some feedback for us all. my apologies, i JUST found this message in my akismet spam filter, among 116 other caught messages! i admit it was just me venting, not trying to attack your team. it’s more of an issue of feature compatability that gets me (yahoo end)…not privacy or anything like that. i feel i should be logged into MBL if i’m using the same Y! mail login, or just keep separate logins. it didn’t make sense to me. that’s why i feel it’s a marketing move, “if you don’t have a yahoo mail account, you better get one!” of course, Y! probably does have better automated username/password assistance already associated with or tied to their own mail system…anyway, thanks again for leaving your feedback!
This change frustrated me for awhile because I couldn’t separate my MBL avatar from my Yahoo! avatar although it gave me that option. I opted to go with my baby hooligan avatar for everything.
i really want to like yahoo…i really do… but then they do stuff like this that’s like 75% and doesn’t make intuitive sense…..
I faced a similar problem with Flickr and Yahoo Photos. They warned me that they were taking Yahoo Photos down and gave me several options of how I want to backup / transfer them. Flickr was the only reasonable option because I had no time to do it manually.
Oh and another thing, I hear that Yahoo is getting rid of their podcasts portal soon. What is up with Yahoo these days?
hi ronald, i’m not sure, i’m not familiar with yahoo’s podcasts. both yahoo and google have tried different new media vehicles, so it’s only fair to say some of those will not pan out as planned. like google video
i shouldn’t complain too much about the login issue, since MBL is a free service, and we all benefit from it. it just didn’t make any sense to me to change it as it’s more of an inconvenience than a necessary function for the user…
Oh Yeah, I was annoyed, especially since I lost my screenshot.. gotta re-u/l it now
hi kiltak! there’s those familiar sunglasses!
Yes! I noticed that too yesterday and it ticked me off to no end. Why can’t I sign in to Flickr or MyBlogLog or anything like that without having to merge accounts. It’s so frustrating and annoying. And once you merge them is there any advantage? No.
I also had to re-upload my avatar as it didn’t make it through the transition for some bizarre reason. I’m not a fan of Yahoo, particularly because I also have to sign in anytime I want to go edit just about anyhting on my profile or log into my yahoo groups, etc. It’s really a ridiculously bulky and archaic system. Sorry. Grrr.
thanks andrew! yes some of their features are “bulky” i agree. maybe they’ll have a mybloglog workshop and we can let them know what we think!
[…] Danielle started a discussion about MyBlogLog outsourcing their login to Yahoo, which is a move I’m not too excited […]
surprised me when i logged in, seems everybodies buying each other nowadays…
yea i’m quickly trying to come up with a strategy for building a site to sell to yahoo or google
i hate the merged logins…i hate it i hate it i hate it…sssooooo much!!!!!!
jamaipanese, how do you really feel?
love your avatar, btw!
Synergy of your personal information and details - but I guess it can only be a good thing in the short term form bloglog. Perhaps Yahoo will cast a wide net and potentially more visitors . . .