Mark Zuckerberg Announces Facebook Dating, Sends Tinder Shares Crashing Down
Mark Zuckerberg, in his opening keynote presentation for the annual Facebook F8 developers' conference in San Jose, California, has revealed Facebook's plan to add a dating service. It's a platform that will emphasize safety and long-term relationships, according to the Facebook CEO.
That's great news for the 200 million or so self-identified singles that Zuckerberg mentioned in his presentation. However, the same can't be said for other dating apps like Tinder, with shares of its parent Match Group down by a huge 22 percent after Zuckerberg's announcement.
"There are 200 million people on Facebook that list themselves as single, so clearly there's something to do here," Zuckerberg said as he opened the first day of the F8 conference on Tuesday, May 1, as quoted by ABC News.
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The Facebook co-founder also emphasized that their upcoming dating service is "not just for hook-ups" and is instead geared towards "meaningful, long-term relationships," which came out as a jab at Tinder and its focus on first impressions.
Zuckerberg explained that making a dating profile on Facebook will be optional, and that profile will not be shown to the friends of the owner. Instead, Facebook will be matching users and their dating profiles to non-friends and will be completely separate from the regular Facebook profile.
Profiles will be matched with a recommendation based on "dating preferences, things in common, and mutual friends," according to Facebook's recap of the first day of F8 2018.
Aside from matching, users of the upcoming Facebook Dating service will also have a chance to meet with other people via Groups or Events. "It mirrors the way people actually date, which is usually at events and institutions that they're connected to," Chris Cox, chief product officer for Facebook, later expanded after Zuckerberg's reveal.
Everything done on the new dating platform will not show up as notifications to friends, Zuckerberg pointed out.
Facebook now plans to test their dating platform later this year, and Zuckerberg would only reveal that the feature could be coming out over the next few months.
The announcement was a big blow to online dating company Match, which also owns the Tinder app. Shares of the Match group plunged by 22 percent, while those of its parent company IAC also dropped by almost 18 percent, according to CNBC.
With Facebook now poised to offer what is likely a free dating platform on top of its extensive network, Tinder and other dating services that charge a premium are now hard-pressed to compete.
"We're surprised at the timing given the amount of personal and sensitive data that comes with this territory," Mandy Ginsberg, Match CEO, noted in a statement, perhaps as an indirect reference to the user data scandal Facebook is currently mired in.
"Regardless, we're going to continue to delight our users through product innovation and relentless focus on relationship success. We understand this category better than anyone," Ginsberg added.
