SAN JOSE:
Facebook Inc is entering the dating game, chief executive Mark
Zuckerberg said on Tuesday, planning a dating service to matchmake millions of people on the world’s largest online social network and nudge them into spending more time there.
The service, which Facebook had considered offering for over a decade and will launch soon, could help rebuild its popularity among younger consumers and make people visit the site more often, two key challenges for the business.
“There are 200 million people on Facebook that list themselves as single, so clearly there’s something to do here,” Zuckerberg told software developers at Facebook’s annual F8 conference. Facebook shares rose 1.1% to close at $173.86 on the news, which sparked a sell-off of established online dating service providers.
Facebook users have been able to reveal their relationship status on the network since it first went live in February 2004. Zuckerberg said Facebook was building the dating service with an emphasis on privacy, a sensitive subject for people who use dating websites.
A prototype displayed on screens at the F8 conference showed a heart shape at the topright corner of the Facebook app. Pressing on it will take people to their dating profile if they have set one up. Potential matches will be recommended based on dating preferences, things in common and mutual friends, Facebook said in a statement. The prototype was built around local, in-person events, allowing people to browse other attendees and send them messages. It did not appear to have a feature to “swipe” left or right on potential matches to signal interest, as Tinder and other established services have. But there were two buttons for “pass” and “interested.”
The optional feature will be for finding long-term relationships, “not just hookups,” Zuckerberg said. People will be able to start a conversation with a potential match by commenting on one of their photos, but for safety reasons, the conversations will be text-only. Unsolicited nude photos are a recurring worry on dating services. Also, the dating activity would not show up in Facebook’s centerpiece News Feed.
