Note: This was featured as part of our Web Wednesday segment on Charleston’s 105.5 The Bridge. You can catch us every Wednesday morning at 8:20 am ET for your dose of social media & digital marketing news.
Even though Mark Zuckerberg has been busy testifying before Congress and handling privacy issues with Facebook, he’s pushing through the obstacles with an announcement of new dating features for the social media platform.
Facebook’s annual F8 developer summit was held at the beginning of May this year, and one of the biggest announcements made was Zuckerberg’s plans for users to use the platform to meet people and create relationships past accepting a friend request.
The company wants to add features for users who are frequently on popular dating apps like:
- Tinder
- Bumble
- OKCupid
These apps are open and welcoming to the new features announced, but the Wall Street Journal is not as confident. After Zuckerberg’s news, shares of the Match Group (owners of Tinder, OkCupid, and Match.com) went down by more than 20 percent.
A portion of his announcement is stated below, explaining how the dating features would work.
“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. 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. They’ll have the option to discover others with similar interests through their Groups or Events. However, what people do within the dating feature will not be shown to their friends. We’ll share more information when this begins testing later this year.”
Through statements from other companies and research done by analysts, it is evident that the majority of users of other dating apps also use Facebook. Its user base is immense and continues to grow. Through people’s profiles, Facebook can draw info based on a user’s:
- Likes
- Dislikes
- Social Graphs
This gives the company an advantage over its competitors with the amount of information it already has in their database. Facebook may have a lot going for it, but it is up to Zuckerberg and his company to efficiently use their data to create a better interface people would want to use over other dating apps.
Want to learn more about Facebook’s new features and updates? Give us a call at (888) 632-4499 for a free, no-obligation consultation today. We’d love to help you out!
