Mark Zuckerberg and Facebook Chief Product Officer Chris Cox used the annual developers’ conference F8, to unveil its plans to launch a dating platform within its main Facebook social media site. What’s interesting is the fact that this dating service has taken almost a decade to materialize and could be a cause of worry for some of the established ones in the same space.
Facebook is leveraging the 200 million users of its main site who have described themselves as single. However, the main concern for the team at Facebook and the users all over would be the kind of security and privacy the service will be able to build within it, particularly coming so soon after the huge Cambridge Analytica episode that pushed the company on its backfoot.
There are still a number of users out there who are not sure if they can trust Facebook with their data. This and the way Facebook is able to build on the dating service with all its features will only decide how much of a disruption it is able to cause for leading dating sites like Tinder, OkCupid, JD Date and Christian Mingle and others.
To start with, it has been kept simple with a heart-shaped icon on the Facebook page and clicking on it will take the user to the dating site. You will have to create your profile if you are interested in looking for a date through the Facebook interface. The preferences indicated in your profile will be used by Facebook to suggest matching people for you to pursue. There would be a ‘pass’ button to move on to the next contact if you are not interested and the ‘interested’ button will take you to the matching person’s page.
No specific date has been mentioned so far by Facebook for the launch of the dating service. Zuckerberg is reported to have indicated that he hoped the users will go for long-term relationships through the service as opposed to mere “hook-ups”.
He also shared with the developers at F8 that it was about 2 years ago that the idea of starting a dating service was driven home when couples who had met each other on Facebook and went on to develop a relationship were posted on the site and thousands had responded to the photo of ne such couple he had posted on his page. The privacy issue is on top of their mind and to begin with the exchange of communication will be only through texts. They are conscious of issues faced by other dating sites when nude photographs suddenly crop up.
Mark Zuckerberg also informed the developers that the “clear history” option to be provided to Facebook users will appear soon. It is being worked on.
The announcement of the dating service yielded positive increase for the shares of Facebook in the bourses, while some of the serious competitors found their shares sliding.