Facebook wants you to make friends. And now it wants you to find our soulmate.
Founder and chief executive officer Mark Zuckerberg said during Facebook’s FB, +1.08%[1] annual conference on Wednesday that the biggest social media site on the planet would launch a dating feature later this year. “Today, we are announcing a new set of features, coming soon, around dating,” he said. “This is going to be for building real, long-term relationships, not just hook-ups.”
The company is entering a crowded space: The dating industry is worth around $3 billion, with revenue split between advertising and subscription services, up revenue up around 5% per year, according to a report by research firm IBISWorld. Of that, around half is from online dating. But it has one big advantage: More than 2 billion members around the world. As dating pools go, they don’t get much bigger than that.
A Facebook spokeswoman told MarketWatch the new feature will allow users to set up a dating profile separate from their normal Facebook account, and activity on dating profiles won’t be shared on the News Feed. Like Tinder, this dating service will only show users’ first names. (That’s useful, given that so many people tell fibs on dating sites.) Users will not be matched with friends on Facebook, but rather others who have marked themselves as “single” on the social media network.
Don’t miss: Dating sites crack down on liars [2]
Shares of Match Group MTCH, -22.09%[3] which owns Tinder and OkCupid, were down 9.6% Tuesday following Facebook’s announcement[4]. Several major online dating platforms, including Tinder, Hinge, and Bumble, use Facebook’s platform to connect profiles to dating profiles, using photos and first names in the app. Skittish singletons can then look the person up on Facebook, if they have mutual friends, and find out more about them. In announcing its own dating service, Facebook has essentially cut out the middle man.
But who will actually use the feature? Meredith Golden, a dating coach based in New York City[5], said she believes the new feature will be used largely by divorcees and users over 40 who may be less likely to use other online services. Even though a Facebook dating service could act in the same way as other location-based dating apps, people know it mostly as a familiar and unthreatening place to talk to friends. It’s an almost seamless transition to dating.
Also see: What NOT to do on a dating website[6]
“There are millions of singles...