Facebook Dating launches in Canada, Thailand

The
original Facebook couple.

AP
Photo/Manuel Balce Ceneta

• Facebook Dating is launching in Canada and
  Thailand.
• It’s a dating service built by Facebook that lives
  inside the main Facebook app.

Facebook’s attempts to find you the love of your life are
growing.

On Thursday, the Silicon Valley social networking firm announced
that Facebook Dating, its online dating service, is launching in
Canada and Thailand, and adding some new features.

The product, the company’s answer to OKCupid or Tinder,
first launched in Colombia in September after being announced
at the F8 conference earlier in 2018. 

Facebook Dating doesn’t have its own app; instead, it’s nestled
inside the core Facebook app. (The company says it currently has
no plans to spin it out.) Facebook is positioning it as a way to
find serious partners, rather than casual Tinder-like matches —
and there’s no swiping and liking, which product manager Nathan
Sharp likened to “speed dating” in an interview with Business
Insider.

Instead, when a user sees someone they like, they send them an
initial message based off a piece of content (a photo, or an
answer to a preset question) on their profile. Then the recipient
can choose whether or not to respond, which will start a proper
conversation. (Users can’t send a second message unless the
person they’re messaging chooses to respond.)

Facebook

It also ties into Groups and Events — with users able to opt into
seeing other Facebook Dating users attending events they’re going
to, or groups they’re a part of. “If you are active in
communities on Facebook, dating becomes so much more
interesting,” Sharp said. 

Facebook Dating is also adding two new features: The ability to
temporarily pause matches, and the ability to take a “second
look” at potential matches that you previously said no to.

The launch and expansion of Facebook Dating is a risky move for
Facebook, which is still reeling from successive data scandals,
from Cambridge Analytica to a hack that saw around 30 million
users’ personal data stolen. It’s also an open question as to
whether users in countries like the US and the UK, where
Facebook’s crises have been consistently headline news, will be
willing to let the company into an ever-more intimate aspects of
their lives.

Sharp declined to provide any figures on how many Facebook users
in Colombia have signed up for Facebook Dating, or how many
matches there have been, but said there had been an
“overwhelmingly positive response” so far.

Facebook Dating launches in Canada and Thailand on Thursday, but
users won’t be able to match with anyone right away, as Facebook
waits for enough people to actually sign up. 

It is also only available to users who are 18 or older. (It won’t
verify users’ IDs to make sure they haven’t lied about their age,
but will take into account the age of their friends in deciding
whether to give users the option to sign up.)

Sharp said there are currently no plans to monetize the service —
either through adverts, premium features, or a subscription
option.