Facebook Announces Dating Service For ‘Genuine Relationships’
Facebook, on Tuesday, announced it is building a dating service for “building real, long-term relationships, not just hookups.”
CEO Mark Zuckerberg made the announcement at the company’s F8 developer conference, in San Jose, California, where he discussed the future of Facebook and its related properties.
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He said the dating service would be a natural fit for the company whose stated mission is to bring the world closer together.
“There are 200 million people on Facebook that list themselves as single, so clearly there’s something to do here,” Zuckerberg said.
According to Facebook, the feature will recommend potential matches based on dating preferences, common interests and mutual friends. It will also allow a user to browse event attendees and send them messages.
It was unclear when the product would be launched and whether it would be available on the web platform. The conference press release said more information would be available when the feature “begins testing later this year.”
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“We’re building a feature for dating and relationships within the Facebook app. People already use Facebook to meet new people, and we want to make that experience better,” Facebook said.
“People will be able to create a dating profile that is separate from their Facebook profile — and potential matches will be recommended based on dating preferences, things in common, and mutual friends.”
On his part, Chris Cox, Facebook’s chief product officer, said the social network had been pondering a dating feature for over a decade, but only seriously began considering it in 2016.
