Inside Facebook Dating, Launch Today in Colombia – TechCrunch

Do deeper data produce perfect matches? Facebook is finally ready to discover, starting today with a nationwide test in Colombia of his dating function. It is centered on a home screen based on suggested romantic matching algorithms based on everything Facebook knows about you and that other apps can not do. There is no sweeping and it's not about being cool, but Facebook Dating is quite familiar and not threatening to be accessible to Facebook users.

Initially announced at F8 in May, Facebook has defined details such as limiting users to express their interest for up to 100 people per day, highlighting personal issues as well as photos and showing you friends or strangers unless you only want to see people without mutual ties. If the test goes well, expect Facebook to be released soon in new countries as the social network pushes its mission to create meaningful connections and to perceive that this can be a positive force.

"The goal of the team is to make Facebook the best place to start an online relationship," said Nathan Sharp, product manager for Facebook Dating, in an in-depth interview about the company's strategy. For beginners, it's not about competing with Tinder to find connections by scanning endless options, but to beat eHarmony, Hinge or OKCupid to find you a life partner. And this is a matter of privacy, from its opt-in character to almost all of its broadcast on Facebook through life within the same application.

"We wanted to create a product that encourages people to remember that there are people behind the profiles and the cards they see. We wanted a system that privileged consideration rather than impulse. We want you to take more account of this person's profile picture. "

There is no plan to monetize Facebook Dating with ads or premium subscriptions to bonus features. But while Facebook strives to remain relevant beyond the aging news and fight the crisis of its brand, there are many incentives for us to find another important partner.

How does Facebook Dating work?

"Dating is something we've seen on the platform since the early days. We know that there are 200 million people who consider themselves single, "Sharp explains. He got married but said with a laugh that Facebook Dating "is definitely a young and unique team". In 2004, online dating still had a far-fetched reputation. But now that more than a third of US marriages are launched online and Facebook has had time to identify the pitfalls of other dating apps, it is ready to go wild.

The basic flow is that users 18 years and older (or the local "Adult" equivalent) will see a notification over their news feed inviting them to try Facebook Dating in their favorites menu. .

They accept, check their city using the location services of their phone and decide to add details like a biography, a workplace, a training, a religion, a size and if they have children . Facebook offers non-binary gender and sexual orientation. To fill their profile, they choose up to a dozen photos that they upload, are tagged, have already been posted on Facebook or have been posted on Instagram, and have answered 20 questions about their personality, by example: a perfect day looks like?

Users can choose to filter their matches by distance (up to a maximum radius of 100 kilometers), if they have children, a religion, a size and an age. They can then browse the list of suggested matches from the Home screen or choose to "Unlock" the events and groups they belong to to see who did the same thing. Anyone you have blocked on Facebook will not appear, although ex-guests can do it. To see the next person, they must either say that they are not interested, either choose a photo or a profile question from the person and send him a message (or at least they are supposed to do so), and the sender can no longer see the recipient.

Only text and emoji messages go through a special Facebook Dating chat section, and not through Messenger, and land in the recipient's Interested tab, without a read receipt. If they answer, the chat moves on the Conversations tab of both people. From there, they can decide to connect elsewhere online or meet in person.

Sharp admits that "the moment you try to control the system, you may have unexpected behaviors". Facebook has anticipated that you can not send a photo message (dick photos), you are supposed to link your message to some of its content (less generic lines), and you can not continue t respond to you (harassment) . But the company plans to remain vigilant in case of unforeseen problems of abuse or privacy.

…And why

Starting today, Colombian users will be able to create a meeting profile on Facebook, but the company will not start serving as a match until there are enough registrations. Sharp says, "We do not expect it to take months." But why Colombia? He says it's because so much of South America has accepted online dating culturally, it has a large population of 30 million active Facebook users a month, and the social network can track data from some discrete metropolitan areas.

But there are many other "why's" on how Facebook Dating was built. Sharp has guided me through the decision-making process that his team undertook to make Facebook Dating a concrete concept. Here, I will go through his rules and features while explaining the philosophy behind them.

1. Meaningful relationships and not a night, because "significant" is Facebook 's new word of command as it enters the era of "past welfare", and that Facebook has biographical and other data. detailed interest in finding you every day, not just in bed with.
2. Automatic non-automatic registrationBecause "not everyone wants to go out with time, it's not everyone who wants to go out with them who wants to go out online.
3. In Facebook not a new applicationbecause it reduces the obstacle to behavior that is difficult enough for some people, and it can only accomplish its mission if people actually use it.
4. Friends of friends and strangers not friendsbecause the biggest fear of many people is "Will my friends and family see this," says Sharp, and people who are already friends do not need help to meet.
5. A new profile not the samebecause some people may want to share a different side or not publicly disclose their sexual orientation. The only information on Facebook Dating is your first name and your age.
6. Message and answer not the two people have slipped rightBecause Facebook wants you to be attentive to what interests you, you must send a message and hope to receive news. There is no infinite right sweep and the wait is then matched or transmitted. "He puts power in the answering machine," says Sharp.
7. Profiles and chat are not part of Facebookbecause it does not want to scare users about privacy, and does not want users to experience Facebook by soliciting dates.
8. Actual age and place not describedbecause Facebook wants to prevent catfishing as well as users contacting matches in distant cities that they will never meet.
9. Matches through events and groups not hikesbecause a photo is not enough to choose a life partner, overlapping interests are the key to compatibility, and they allow people ready to use as dates.

The end result is an online dating product that maximizes convenience, both in the availability and amount of hunting to be done by yourself. The big question remains to know where will Facebook go to make Dating a success. The feature might live or die of how much Facebook is willing to constantly harass its individual users to sign up.

Facebook is in a precarious time for its brand and may struggle to make people trust it in an even more sensitive part of their lives. "As all the events of the past year have gone, it has only underscored the importance of confidentiality," concludes Sharp. Nobody wants his dating profile to end with Cambridge Analytica'd. But if the analysis of each of your "Like" and each link gives Facebook an inconvenient precision, the word could travel quickly if that's how people find their soul mates.