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Facebook Social Networks

Facebook Reaches Its Natural Conclusion As A Dating App (buzzfeed.com) 199

Facebook will soon include a dating feature in its service, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced at the company's F8 developer conference in San Jose Tuesday. From a report: The service will throw Facebook into a sphere it's long been adjacent to but never entered. The social network already has online dating's critical ingredient, a robust graph of people's connection, and services like Tinder, Bumble, and Hinge have been built on top of it. Now, it's getting into the dating game itself.

"There are 200 million people on Facebook who list themselves as single, so clearly there's something to do here," Zuckerberg said. "Today, we are announcing a new set of features coming soon, around dating." The feature will be opt-in, and will not match users with people they're already friends with.
Update: Facebook has clarified that married people too can use the dating service.
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Facebook Reaches Its Natural Conclusion As A Dating App

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  • by AlanBDee ( 2261976 ) on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @01:48PM (#56537262)

    My wife's on facebook. jk

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Tablizer ( 95088 )

      My wife's on facebook.

      I know, I just went out with her.

      • by Anonymous Coward

        I porked her. Hopefully before you did? Went out with her last Friday.

      • I wonder if you could hold Facebook responsible if they hooked you up with someone who then gave you an STD?

        Like they would have to know that!

    • It annoys me. There are so many temptations out there and it's depressing how much easier we are making things like this. Messenger was bad enough.

      I know I'm an old fuddy-duddy but it does make me sad.

  • got a date with a hot Nigerian Princess.

    • did she want an advance in advance of your date?

      • No, it was too secure our fortune from her recently deceased father's gold mine in Africa. All she has to do, is go there, and prove we are married, and she can claim our riches.

        I sent an extra $100,000 so she would ship me my gold instead of taking the chance she won't return to be the "able wife" she has promised. I'm smart enough to know she might just be using me!

  • This has the makings of some very creepy dating scenarios and introductions, like in the super market or stuck in traffic.
    "Honk at the blue lexus if you want a date"

    • by mentil ( 1748130 )

      Coming soon: Precog Dating
      Wear these clothes (Amazon link included), with this hairstyle (barber-bot configuration link included), stand at this spot (Google Maps link included) at this time (alarm setting link included), looking in this direction (Google Earth link included), and say to this person (Facebook link included) this phrase in this tone with this body language (Youtube link included).
      First date guaranteed.

  • Shopping for a Russian wife on Facebook. Then you find out she's a GRU operative and you get blackmailed into serving Putin. Most likely make you run for public office.

    All kidding around aside.. most online dating is just fail, fail, fail to start with, and 'Facebook dating'? Seriously? It's too early in the week to facepalm this hard.
    • I met my wife through an online dating website, 12 years go.

    • All kidding around aside.. most online dating is just fail, fail, fail to start with, and 'Facebook dating'?

      It depends on what you are looking for.

      When my wife died, I got on POF. I had a lot of success meeting people who were also "looking for a serious relationship." The sad fact was that almost all of them just wanted a quick fun time (which is fine but choose that in your profile.) It was a very jading experience.

      I found my current wife there, though.

      • by Ranbot ( 2648297 )

        All kidding around aside.. most online dating is just fail, fail, fail to start with, and 'Facebook dating'?

        It depends on what you are looking for... I had a lot of success meeting people... I found my current wife there, though.

        Right... it depends on your expectations. Online dating can also be good dating practice too. Years ago the dates I went on via online dating services made me more comfortable being on a date, asking good questions, interacting more positively, reading subtle cues, etc. I didn't find my soul mate online, but online dating wasn't a failure either because the experience gained by online dating helped when I met my wife [the typical way] through a mutual friend.

    • by sconeu ( 64226 )

      Met my GF on JDate.

  • You should be able to opt into that, too. There's people on my friends list I don't know all that well.

  • Why not match with friends? Make it "opt in", so if both people poke each other, they get matched :) If you already know someone, it might be a good tool as well.
    • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      If you already know someone and you have romantic feelings toward them maybe you could not be such soyboy and um say something?

      Seriously you want "poke" someone on facebook because you are to afraid to speak to them?

      • I'm happily engaged, but I also don't see the reason for excluding friends from dating if both parties are willing.
        • by Dog-Cow ( 21281 )

          You are missing the point. You don't need a new FB feature to connect to someone you're already connected to, on Facebook.

  • by Anonymous Coward

    Facebook busted for human trafficking.

  • HA (Score:5, Insightful)

    by gurps_npc ( 621217 ) on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @02:01PM (#56537340) Homepage

    I always hated that so many popular dating apps decided they required a Facebook login. They desired all that extra data and, while I was willing to give a small company that info, I was not willing to give Facebook it.

    Now they are all about to have their business destroyed by the behemoth they fed in their demand for a slightly easier login and extra non-dating related data.

    Honestly, if you want to make your own business, only an idiot sets themselve up as totally dependent on one supplier. That makes you their middleman, nothing more.

    • I always hated that so many popular dating apps decided they required a Facebook login.

      Which dating apps require you to have a Facebook account?

    • by antdude ( 79039 )

      It's not just dating apps. :(

    • Federated Login has its purposes - mostly in outsourcing some important security concerns. Would I trust a poorly written web site not to leak my password hash? Or to hash my password in the first place? No. Facebook is a bad example, but there are multiple options.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      I always hated that so many popular dating apps decided they required a Facebook login. They desired all that extra data and, while I was willing to give a small company that info, I was not willing to give Facebook it.

      Erm... I used a fake facebook with fake details. Most people do. It gives you something to talk about on the first few dates.

      Hell, I still use my fake facebook for meeting... ahem, Ladies in foreign nations. It sees more activity than my "real" facebook these days.

  • Coming soon (Score:5, Funny)

    by dysmal ( 3361085 ) on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @02:03PM (#56537354)

    The Facebook Divorce app!

  • ... The feature will be opt-in, and will not match users with people they're already friends with.

    Is that so? Sounds to me like maybe someone neglected to do their homework [google.com].

    • Re: (Score:2, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward

      Will it match users with people they've Facebook stalked? Asking for a friend.

  • Honest Question (Score:4, Interesting)

    by forkfail ( 228161 ) on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @02:05PM (#56537374)

    Why, despite the number of folks posting submissions [slashdot.org] are we getting buzzfeed sourced articles with no submitter except msmash or BeauHD? Seriously - I had to go back two pages on the firehose feed to find any submitted articles except one AC submitted one.

    • Why do you think?
      • ... they have run out of cute ideas for buzfeed videos that even have a tenuous connection to reality, so are trying to arrange things such that they can make one about "10 Dead Tech Websites That Used To Rule The World, and The Greybeards That Died With Them"?

    • by mentil ( 1748130 )

      The firehose has been full of spam for years. Simple solution: only accounts with Excellent karma can post submissions to firehose. Gameable, but probably good enough.

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      The story submission system has been broken for a while. Everything you submit gets marked as spam, and then it stops you posting comments too, and you have to email the site staff to get it fixed but your submission remains in the spam folder anyway... So naturally people got fed up of being punished for submitting stuff.

      Allegedly it's fixed now, but I have not tried it yet. Maybe later today.

  • Since Facebook is a "free" website you wont have a bunch of paid actors on the site stringing lonely people along trying to keep them subscribing to service.

    • Yeah, there's no bots on Facebook.

      • by SeaFox ( 739806 )

        There's bots, and just like all other chat services since the beginning of AOL, and they will continue trying to lure people to other websites, but there is no financial incentive for the site owners themselves to deceive people the same way. Matchmaking is not Facebook's only purpose (unlike Match.com), and their business model is based on data mining, not direct subscriptions (at this point).

        • What difference does it make whether the bot is from Facebook or an outside platform? This new service would enable it.

  • Comment removed based on user account deletion
    • by dargaud ( 518470 )
      OKCupid was started by some pretty good statisticians. For a while they had (still have?) a regular blog with statistical analyses of their users and it was fascinating to read. User analytics before it was a fad.
    • I can imagine two reasons they might have done that.

      One, it's more like Tinder which is their main competition these days.

      Two, the biggest complaint I've heard about online dating has mostly been that women are absolutely inundated with messages and consequently barely respond to any of them so men never get any responses so they just spam every woman so women get inundated with messages and so on in a vicious cycle. If you can only see messages from people you also "like" (without first knowing that they l

  • by 8127972 ( 73495 ) on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @02:17PM (#56537470)

    Right now Facebook is fighting the #DeleteFacebook movement as trivial as that is in the grand scheme of things. Regardless, it still presents a threat. Thus Facebook has to come up with ways to make you less likely to move off their platform. Thus a dating app makes sense if you're single or "single." It will keep all that ad revenue on their platform or so they believe.

    BTW, despite what they say, if Facebook thinks for one second that they can make a pile of money from quick hookups, they'll go there too.

    • by DarkOx ( 621550 )

      #DeleteFacebook is pretty big problem for them actually. Us relics from the late 70s and early 80s probably are not going anywhere but the younger folks just might if enough of the chums also use something else like Signal or whatever.

      Its also true that if FB is perceived negatively new people won't sign up when they reach teen/young adulthood. And FB absolutely has to show growth in the teen/ya market place otherwise the advertisers will leave and the investors will follow.

      #deletefacebook might not cost

      • Facebook has plenty of ways to work around this problem, since they have so much cash. Consider that Microsoft is perceived as 'cool' by a lot of kids because they have the Xbox. Also, they have Minecraft so they have plenty of other kids on board, even if those kids don't know it.

        A lot of the Facebook deleters are going to Instagram, which is owned by Facebook, so big deal.
      • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

        Us relics from the late 70s and early 80s probably are not going anywhere

        I've moved on from Facebook... I'm still young and cool!

    • by Tom ( 822 )

      BTW, despite what they say, if Facebook thinks for one second that they can make a pile of money from quick hookups, they'll go there too.

      I doubt it. Only an idiot would do their flings on a track-everything-you-do site like FB, and the second someones wife spots something on their news feed and throws a tantrum, the media will be all over it and FB will suffer more than it gets. It isn't at the point anymore where any PR is good PR.

  • by DontBeAMoran ( 4843879 ) on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @02:22PM (#56537494)

    "There are 200 million people on Facebook who list themselves as single, so clearly there's something to do here," Zuckerberg said.

    He says that as if it was a problem to be fixed.

    Fuck you, Zuckerberg. No wait, I didn't mean it that way!

  • (sarcasm intended).

    When kids that use facebook start getting recommended to other people as potential dates just because of a bad setting, they are going to be in sooooo much shit for this....

    • by mentil ( 1748130 )

      No more than underage users of dating sites who claim to be over 18. So long as facebook disallows under-18 profiles from opting into this, they can say it's a good-faith effort. Lawsuit averted.

      • by mark-t ( 151149 )

        If people were perfect and nobody ever made mistakes, sure.

        The thing is that since those dating sites require that you not be a minor to even *use* the service, a false representation of one's age will have to be deliberate.

        Because facebook allows minors on its site (to a minimum of 13), such a setting could plausibly be entirely accidental on the part of the user.

        One could only argue it's good faith on facebook's part if minors were prohibited entirely from using the service, because then the onus i

  • by UnknownSoldier ( 67820 ) on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @02:23PM (#56537498)

    Wonder how many people will use this feature as a quick "hookup"?

    • by AmiMoJo ( 196126 )

      Many people would value being able to see someone's Facebook profile and history, as a way of filtering out dangerous creeps. I can see it being a popular feature for that alone.

    • by mjwx ( 966435 )

      Wonder how many people will use this feature as a quick "hookup"?

      Including or not including the number of people who are already doing that? Not to mention the "ladies" looking for Johns.

  • Judging from the typical FB feed, all the interesting and sexy singles (real ones, not bots) are the ones who aren't on Facebook.
    • by mentil ( 1748130 )

      This could end up reducing average time spent on facebook. People dating are generally not spending time on facebook at the same time. If your date IS spending lots of time on facebook during your date, there probably won't be another date.

  • This could actually undermine a key branding strength that's enabled Facebook to hold on for so long -- people don't mind staying superficially "connected" with old friends whom they never talk to, but in the roller coaster quest for love, a failed relationship could linger like moldy cheese in your timeline . . . every time you see that little blue icon you're reminded of all the disappointment and pain . . . better to just "delete Facebook" and start fresh on a new app -- after all there are plenty of oth
  • by Verdatum ( 1257828 ) on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @03:14PM (#56537828)
    This is honestly long overdue. If they manage to do this well, this could get pretty popular pretty fast. I've never gotten any joy out of Facebook, but I could honestly see myself giving this a try.

  • 20 years ago many people thought it was a bit crazy to "meet people from the internet"

    How many times does Facebook need to be exposed as a political manipulation tool and seller of your data to whomever pays?!

    Fuck Facebook.
  • I fell victim to a dating scam through a Facebook friend request. It is too easy to pull this off on FB.

    The scam artists got my name on a list and I was still getting friend requests from complete female strangers with all the hallmarks of a dating scam (no mutual friends, too few friends, account opened too recent, no mutual interests, location too far away, etc)

    Since then I have changed my account settings so that the only friend requests I can receive are from mutual friends, and only my friends c
  • So, FB is finally going down that last vestige of online moral prostitution and becoming a dating site. Picking up for all the lost Craigslist space...
    Next they'll be selling sex toys online.
    All the more reason to quit FB.
  • When will Facebook start kissing me and tucking me in at night?
  • Facebook is exactly the place where you should put intimate details about you, knowing how trustworthy they proved to handle all the ordinary privacy information about you.

  • This move will probably kill dating apps that were built upon Facebook, notably Coffee Meets Bagel [coffeemeetsbagel.com]. CMB was built upon the idea of linking up friends-of-friends on Facebook's network. This will probably be one of the major causalities. Other popular dating websites probably glean data from Facebook, but they have their own independent databases allowing them to stay standing albeit with greater competition.
  • by Locke2005 ( 849178 ) on Tuesday May 01, 2018 @07:14PM (#56538910)
    PornHub should add a dating function that matches people up with others that are into the same kinks... er, not like I would need that sort of service, no sir... I mean, all I do is straight missionary, no kinks at all!
  • I can quit any time I want!

  • Facebook's revenue is based on advertising, and they want to eliminate an entire highly active sector of advertising on their site? (dating apps)

    It's a bit mystifying. Anyone shed some light?

  • No, like seriously - it was some tool for college students to work out which of the women were worth trying to pork. Instead of, you know, looking at them from across the bar and trying.

    I just finished deleting all my facebook data. That's it - all gone. I'm guessing that'll fuck up their interrelationship data more than just deleting the account.

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