Facebook is officially getting into the dating game. The social network launched its dating service, Facebook Dating, in Colombia on Thursday. Users can only set up their profiles for now, but they’ll be able to match with other people within the next few months. “The goal of the team is to make Facebook simply the best place to start a relationship online,” the app’s product manager Nathan Sharp told Tech Crunch. “Dating is something we’ve seen on the platform since the earliest days. We know there are 200 million people who list themselves as single.” Facebook first announced its plan to dip into the dating pool in May. But the social media giant is not trying to compete with Tinder and Grindr, which are known for people seeking casual encounters. To sign up, Facebook Dating users have to answer 20 compatibility questions like, “What does your perfect day look like?” and “What song always makes you sing along? How loud?” Matches, limited to 100 suggested per day, are based on your compatibility answers as well as your likes and interests on Facebook. There’s no swiping involved, either — one user has to respond to their match’s message to initiate conversation. Meanwhile, you won’t see users you’ve blocked as your Facebook friend. The service is only available on mobile apps and your dating profile is separate from your regular Facebook page. “We wanted a system that emphasizes consideration over impulse,” Sharp said. “We want you to consider more than that person’s profile photo.” Sharp told Tech Crunch Facebook decided to first launch in Colombia because online dating is culturally accepted in South America and the population of 30 million monthly active users is easier to track. Facebook has yet to announce a launch date in the US.<doc-sep>Four months after Facebook announced the launch Facebook Dating, a dating app built within the app, the service launched to a test audience in Colombia. This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. This is the first glimpse anyone's gotten at what the app, which isn't actually an app, but another tab within Facebook. People who want to use it will be able to set up a separate Facebook Dating profile, in addition to their regular Facebook profile, that's only visible to other Dating users. Facebook says none of the activity you log on Facebook Dating will show up on your News Feed, or elsewhere on the app. Based on screenshots, Dating looks a lot like the current iteration of Hinge—there won't be any swiping (like on Tinder and Bumble), and instead, users will have to answer question prompts to get conversations rolling. And because Facebook already knows basically everything about you—like what you Like, which Events you're planning to go to, and what sort of Groups you belong to— Facebook Dating will integrate this preexisting knowledge into its dating service. Dating users will be served suggested matches based on things they've already liked on Facebook—so maybe all those really lame proto-meme pages you liked in 2005 are now going to play a major role in your romantic life. Dating users will be able to opt-in if they want to see if any other Dating users (who've also opted-in) are going to certain events they're marked as attending, or belong to groups they join. The idea is to get more people to meet IRL than on the actual Dating service. "More than 200 million people have listed themselves as single in their relationship status on Facebook," Nathan Sharp, product manager for Facebook Dating, said in a press release. "We view this as an incredible opportunity to continue helping people build relationships in meaningful ways on Facebook." This content is imported from {embed-name}. You may be able to find the same content in another format, or you may be able to find more information, at their web site. There's no word yet on when Facebook Dating will be available to users outside of Colombia. Follow Hannah on Twitter. Hannah Smothers Hannah writes about health, sex, and relationships for Cosmopolitan, and you can follow her on Twitter and Instagram This content is created and maintained by a third party, and imported onto this page to help users provide their email addresses. You may be able to find more information about this and similar content at piano.io<doc-sep>Does deeper data produce perfect matches? Facebook is finally ready to find out, starting today with a country-wide test in Colombia of its new Dating feature. It’s centered around an algorithm-powered homescreen of Suggested romantic matches based on everything Facebook knows about you that other apps don’t. There’s no swiping and it’s not trying to look cool, but Facebook Dating is familiar and non-threatening enough to feel accessible to Facebook’s broad array of single users. Originally announced at F8 in May, Facebook has hammered out details like limiting users to expressing interest in a maximum of 100 people per day, spotlighting personal questions as well as photos, and defaulting to show you friends-of-friends as well as strangers unless you only want to see people with no mutual connections. If the test goes well, expect Facebook to roll Dating out to more countries shortly as the social network pushes its mission to create meaningful connections and the perception that it can be a force of good. “The goal of the team is to make Facebook simply the best place to start a relationship online” Facebook Dating’s product manager Nathan Sharp told me during an expansive interview about the company’s strategy and how it chose to diverge from the top dating apps. For starters, it’s not trying to compete with Tinder for where you find hookups by swiping through infinite options, but instead beat eHarmony, Hinge, and OKCupid at finding you a life partner. And it’s all about privacy, from its opt-in nature to how it’s almost entirely siloed from Facebook though lives within the same app. “We wanted to make a product that encouraged people to remember that there are people behind the profiles and the cards that they’re seeing. We wanted a system that emphasizes consideration over impulse. We want you to consider more than that person’s profile photo.” Though Facebook could surely earn a ton off of Facebook Dating if it gets popular, for now there are no plans to monetize it with ads or premium subscriptions to bonus features. But as Facebook strives to stay relevant beyond the aging News Feed and combat its branding crisis, there are plenty of incentives for it to find us a significant other. How Facebook Dating Works… “Dating is something we’ve seen on the platform since the earliest days. We know there are 200 million people who list themselves as single” says Sharp. He’s married himself but says with a laugh that Facebook Dating “is definitely a young and single team.” Back in 2004, online dating still had a sleazy reputation. But now that over a third of U.S. marriages start online, and Facebook has had time to identify the pitfalls stumbled into by other dating apps, it’s ready to pucker up. The basic flow is that users 18 and up (or the local ‘Adult’ equivalent) will see a notice atop their News Feed inviting them to try Facebook Dating when it comes to their country, and they’ll see a shortcut in their bookmarks menu. For now Facebook Dating is mobile-only, and will is bundled into the social network’s main iOS and Android apps. They’ll opt in, verify their city using their phone’s location services, and decide whether to add details like a free-form bio, workplace, education, religion, height, and if they have children. Facebook offers non-binary genders and sexual orientations. To fill out their profile, they’ll choose up to a dozen photos they upload, are tagged in, previously posted to Facebook, or cross-posted from Instagram as well as answer up to 20 questions about their personality such as “What does your perfect day look like?” or “What song always makes you sing along? How loud?” Users can select to filter their matches by distance (up to a maximum radius of 100 kilometers), if they have children, religion, height, and age. They may then browse through the homescreen’s Suggested matches list, or they can choose to ‘Unlock’ Events and Groups they’re part of to see people from those who’ve done the same. Anyone you’ve blocked on Facebook won’t show up, though unfriended exs might. To see the next person, they either have to say they’re not interested, or choose a photo or question from the person’s profile and send them a message related to it (or at least they’re supposed to), and afterwards the sender can’t see the recipient any more. The text and emoji-only messages go through a special Facebook Dating chat section, not Messenger, and land in the recipient’s Interested tab with no read receipts. If they reply, the chat moves to both people’s Conversations tab. From there they can decide to connect elsewhere online or meet up in person. Sharp admits that “The moment you try to control the system you may have some unexpected behaviors occur there”. Facebook thought ahead so you can’t message photos (dick pics), you’re supposed to tie your message to a piece of their content (fewer generic pick-up lines), and you can’t follow up with people who don’t respond to you (stalking). But the company plans to stay vigilant in case unexpected forms of abuse or privacy issues emerge. Overall, Facebook managed to pull off Dating without any glaring privacy snafus or other obvious missteps. …And Why Starting today, users in Colombia will be able to create a Facebook Dating profile, but the company won’t start serving matches until there are enough sign ups. Sharp tells me “we don’t expect it to take months.” But why Colombia? He says it’s because much of South America has culturally accepted online dating, it has a sizeable population of 30 million monthly active Facebook users, and the social network can track data out of a few discrete metropolitan areas. It also likely limits the prying eyes of journalists hunting for Facebook policy or privacy screw-ups, and eliminates the risk of disrupting its advertising in more lucrative markets like the U.S. It’s hard to forget that Facebook screwed up news consumption in Sri Lanka, Bolivia, Slovakia, Serbia, Guatemala and Cambodia last year by banishing all news publishers to a separate feed — effectively depriving the populations of important information. There are consequences to its experiments. There are a lot of other ‘whys’ to how Facebook Dating was built. Sharp ran me through the decision making process his team undertook to turn Facebook Dating from a concept into a concrete product. Here I’ll run through its rules and features while explaining the philosophy behind them: Meaningful relationships not one-night-stands, because “meaningful” is Facebook’s new watchword as it enters the ‘Time Well Spent’ era, and the company has the deep biographical and interest data to find you matches you’ll want to wake up next to each day, not just go to bed with. Opt-in not automatic enrollment, because “not everyone who’s single wants to date, not everyone who wants to date wants to date online, and not everyone who dates online wants to date on Facebook” says Sharp in a moment of humility. Within Facebook not a new app, because it lowers the barrier to behavior that’s already hard enough for some people, and it can only achieve its mission if people actually use it. Friends-of-friends and strangers not friends, because many people’s biggest fear is “are my friends and family going to see this?” says Sharp. People who are already friends don’t need help meeting and may already know if they want to date each other. A new profile not your same one, because some people might want to share a different side of themselves or might not publicly disclose their true sexual orientation. The only info ported into Facebook Dating is your first name and age. Message and response not both people swiped right, because since Facebook wants you to be deliberate about who you show interest in, you have to send one message and hope to hear back. There’s no infinite right-swiping and then waiting to get matched or messaged. “It puts the power in the responder” Sharp says.<doc-sep>
Facebook has launched its new dating service, which was teased earlier this year and rolled out in beta to employees a few months later. For now, Facebook Dating is only available in Colombia, but the company is expected to bring it to other countries in the future. The service is built into Facebook's core mobile app, but is separate from most features in it. The service will compete against the likes of Tinder, Bumble, and OkCupid. Facebook is officially in the dating game, but for now, you'll have to be in Colombia to use it to find your next match. The social networking giant on Thursday launched its new dating feature, which it unveiled earlier this year. Facebook Dating is only available in the South American country, although the company is expected to eventually offer it in the US and other countries. "More than 200 million people have listed themselves as single in their relationship status on Facebook," Nathan Sharp, the product manager for the new dating feature, said in a statement. "We view this as an incredible opportunity to continue helping people build relationships in meaningful ways on Facebook." Facebook is offering the new feature as a service within its eponymous mobile app. Users have to opt into it. Once they do, Facebook will suggest potential matches based on interests and activities. Unlike Tinder, the leading dating app, Facebook's service doesn't allow users to swipe left or right to choose potential dates based on their looks alone. Although built within Facebook's app, the dating service is kept largely apart from it. The company won't suggest users' Facebook friends as possible matches, for example. And users' dating activity won't be posted to the News Feed or their Facebook profile pages. Facebook Dating has plenty of rivals Facebook is entering a crowded market, with apps ranging from Tinder to OkCupid to Bumble catering to singles looking for romantic connections. However, Facebook's wealth of knowledge about users' interests and activities could help give it a leg up. The company is hoping to distinguish the service from some of its rivals by focusing on helping users find long-term relationships, rather than hookups or one-night stands. Screen shots of Facebook Dating, which is a part of the main Facebook app, but is kept separate from other Facebook services. Facebook The company announced the dating service at its F8 developer conference earlier this year and touted it as an example of how it is increasingly focusing on promoting "meaningful" interactions among its users. The service comes as usage of Facebook's primary service has been declining and trust in the company has been waning in the wake of a series of scandals and setbacks, including the leaking of data on some 87 million users to Cambridge Analytica, a data firm that was linked with President Donald Trump.