How does Facebook dating works?
Facebook connects billions of people worldwide. It's now assisting them in hooking up and (possibly) meeting the love of their lives.
The social media giant will launch its new dating service, Facebook Dating, in the United States on Thursday, after launching it in 19 countries last year, including Argentina, Canada, Chile, Mexico, Peru, Singapore, Thailand, and Vietnam.
At its 2018 F8 developer conference, Facebook announced the new dating service, which will recommend potential matches based on Facebook activity to users who opt in and choose to create a dating profile. To pair potential matches, the service uses dating preferences, mutual friends, groups, and events attended on Facebook. It's also completely free to use.
With the introduction of this feature, Facebook enters the $3 billion dating industry, where it will face stiff competition from apps such as OKCupid, Tinder, and Bumble. Match Group (MTCH), which owns Tinder and OKCupid, saw its stock drop as much as 6% on Thursday. The stock had previously fallen by more than 15% on the day Facebook announced the dating feature.
Facebook enters the fray with the distinct advantage of having access to its estimated 221 million US users. According to a Pew Research study, seven out of ten U.S. adults use Facebook, implying that the potential user base at launch is massive. Tinder, on the other hand, has only 3.8 million users.
According to another Pew Research study, only about half of American teenagers (51 percent) use the main Facebook app. This dating feature is only available to users 18 and older, so it is unlikely to help Facebook's declining popularity among teenagers.
For the time being, the service is only available on mobile and does not require any additional downloads. It's integrated into the main Facebook app. You can find it by going to the top right menu, which is also where you'll find the marketplace and groups.
According to Facebook, the service operates independently of main Facebook profiles and is not scraped for information that can be used to target advertisements. That could, of course, change in the future.
Users who create a dating profile can choose which information they want to display on their Facebook profile, including whether they have mutual Facebook friends with their dating prospects. They won't be able to see people they're already friends with on Facebook or people they've blocked.
Profiles are initially auto-populated with only first names. Users can then enter their location, gender, height, religion, job title, company, schools, and whether or not they have children, among other details that are fairly common among dating apps. Users, for example, can select who they want to date from a list that includes everyone, all women, trans women, all men, and trans men. Users can display their gender as cis woman, trans woman, cis man, trans man, or nonbinary.
A profile can include up to nine photos as well as an icebreaker question such as "What three emoji best describe you?" When the process is finished, Facebook's dating algorithm selects and displays potential matches.
From here on out, Facebook Dating appears to be nearly identical to other dating services. You can match with people who live nearby, share the same religion, or have certain physical characteristics. Notably, there is no option to search for specific ethnicities.
Instead of swiping left or right, users can indicate interest or pass by clicking a heart button. It is possible to like specific content on someone's profile, such as a photo or the answer to one of the ice-breaker questions. This is similar to how the Hinge dating app operates.
The majority of the core features of Facebook Dating were heavily influenced by other apps on the market. If you use an app like Tinder, Hinge, or Bumble, you are probably very familiar with the controls and how pairing works (i.e., when two people like each other, they are paired and can begin chatting).
The "Secret Crush" feature is one of the few distinguishing features of Facebook Dating. If you scroll past the app's events and groups section – where you can pair with people from Facebook events and groups – you'll find an area where you can add secret crushes to your interests.
Users can add up to nine friends from Facebook or Instagram followers who they secretly admire in the Secret Crush section, and they will receive a notification. They will be notified once you add them to your Secret Crush list. Users who have each other on their list will be notified and paired as well. They can start messaging once they've been matched.
Unless you match with them, Facebook claims your secret crush will never know it was you who added them to the list. According to Facebook, the goal is for people to try to form relationships with people they know but are too afraid to approach.
It's an intriguing concept, and it's entirely unique to Facebook. There is no other service in the United States that is large enough to support this type of feature. It remains to be seen whether it succeeds, but it's interesting to see Facebook already leveraging its massive user base to give Facebook Dating a slight advantage over other apps.
Finally, the last noteworthy feature of Facebook Dating is its emphasis on safety and support. The service now has a new "Share Your Plans" feature that allows people to easily share their locations if they decide to meet up with someone for a date.
Facebook Dating lets you share your live location to keep friends and family aware of your well-being if you decide to meet with someone.
After you've finished messaging one of your matches, you can share your plans with family and friends to let them know where you'll be meeting your date.
This feature allows you to share your location with friends or family for a set period of time. This allows loved ones to keep track of you if you decide to meet with a stranger.
Facebook Dating is now available to all 18-year-olds in the United States who have downloaded the most recent version of Facebook.