
Facebook is launching a dating feature - mendelk
https://www.cnbc.com/2018/05/01/facebook-is-launching-a-dating-app.html
======
dpeck
Facebook has always been a dating website, this is just making it more
visible/defined for the less aware.

------
Jhsto
I think it has been covered before that Facebook already has a hunch if two
people seem to be interested in each other -- groups, events, messages they
share, times they have visited each other profiles, and reaction counts
proportional to posts after the friendship was started.

I think the fact that they also announced incognito mode today suggests that
this dating feature could be passive. Like, if you browse Facebook normally
and you are both using this feature, and Facebook sees you are both stalking
each other rather much, it could break the ice for you. This is probably the
better the more oblivious you are and I can see the value in this.

It will also be interesting to see how this feature will be rolled out. While
there can be a mutual attraction between two people, I can see it being a
challenge to programmatically figure out whether there exist any other reasons
why the relationship could not work, e.g. logistics, and how well is Facebook
able to identify such possible problems before initiating the icebreaker.

~~~
Operyl
I'm pretty sure they've stated that they won't be showing friends to each
other as "matches" though.

------
reaperducer
It's like Tinder. But with the potential to influence the ads you eventually
see on your cable box and web browser.

What could possibly go wrong?

------
tin7in
Facebook deprecated just 4 weeks ago certain permissions from Facebook Login
including relationship status, relationship details, about me, education
history, work history. Tinder and Bumble for example relied heavily on those
permissions in order to quickly fill the user profile with data.

[https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2018/04/04/faceboo...](https://developers.facebook.com/blog/post/2018/04/04/facebook-
api-platform-product-changes/)

~~~
noobermin
...is this grounds for monopolistic suits?

~~~
John_KZ
I wish they finally get burned by it. But probably not.

------
noobermin
Is no one going to point out that Facebook is _still_ in the center of a
public panic over privacy? Are you sure the public is going to want FB of all
entities to host and run a dating service?

I don't get how everyone is so bullish here. I think if anything Mark should
have waited a couple of months.

Not trying to be needlessly negative, I'm just surprised by the reaction here.

~~~
zerostar07
it's not at all clear by the data that the public is freaking out. news sites
do.

------
mrnobody_67
Makes sense.

Birth rates declining. People getting married later, and having fewer kids.

Western Countries facing declining population in next 25 years.

Existential threat to their growth at all costs model.

------
ahallock
Disregarding all the recent privacy issues, I think FB is poised to become the
best dating site out there. The personal data it's been collecting for all
these years--the likes, shares, comments, events, groups, etc.--could be used
to create fine-grained matches.

~~~
llccbb
What does this mean for "opposites attract" and "my better half"? Many
substantial, long-term, fulfilling relationships are mutual partnerships where
each person grows and as a couple find things that are "theirs" while filling
critical roles for each other.

Fine-grained matches might not be that great. What will one have to learn from
a relationship? What new interests will be developed? I know that FB's
sociologists and ML experts have been considering these aspects more than I,
but I fear the continued segregation and viewpoint-reinforcement that FB and
algorithmic association sites subtly (or invisibly) are forcing upon society.

~~~
s73v3r_
One would hope that they've come up with a couple different algorithms, to
find matches that fit those different scenarios. "Here's some people who
compliment you well. Here are some people that are different. Here's someone
who's basically you."

------
propman
Darn it, I'll have to reactivate Facebook. Almost every dating site requires a
Facebook login for authentication too, they will be hit hard depending on how
well Facebook makes this.

I'm very cynical about Facebook, but just like their blue collar job listings,
this has serious potential if done right.

------
brad0
Facebook knows us better than anyone else [1]

However, this means that Facebook may know better than anyone who I would be
best to date.

I'm excited to see where this goes, and a little terrified.

[1] [https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/20/science/facebook-knows-
yo...](https://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/20/science/facebook-knows-you-better-
than-anyone-else.html)

------
eigen-vector
If anything, Facebook is late in launching this. I'm curious why they didn't
buy Tinder and get into the game earlier. Maybe they did and figured they'd
much rather build it in-house than spend a fortune buying Tinder or something
simiar—like they did with Snap.

~~~
saimiam
> late in launching

Dating is an unsolvable problem. You can't be late to it. There will be people
being born looking to find SOs so long as the human race exists. Even if Match
captures 100% of the market this year, next year, another batch of kids will
enter the "I'm getting older and everyone I know is settling down" panic.

------
vthallam
A way to get young people to use FB more? I know they literally know who's
best for a user based on the ton of data we feed, but I'm wondering the
privacy conscious folks would be hesitant to create a dating profile on FB.

~~~
tempodox
> ...they literally know who's best for a user...

That's what I'm genuinely wondering about: Putting all the privacy issues
aside, will some machine learning algorithm really be capable of predicting
“functioning chemistry” between people?

~~~
scj
I interpreted the comment as: "Facebook would have a better chance of
predicting it than competitors given their information."

Remember, you don't need to outrun a bear, just the other people around you.

------
downandout
The elephant in the room here is that this was announced at F8 - a conference
for platform developers - yet _this_ platform application was developed
internally and is one that, because of the neutering of the API, no outside
developer could have built. They essentially said “ _hey developers, look at
this neat thing we built that you can’t!_ ”.

I’m curious what the point of F8 actually is at this stage. The platform has
become so restricted that social apps can’t be built anymore. Facebook should
just acknowledge that outside developers have outlived their usefulness now
that they have helped the service attract 2 billion users, and scrap the
conference.

~~~
aviv
When I wear my tinfoil hat it becomes clear that Cambridge Analytica was a
manufactured crisis to give Facebook the public permission and mission to
purge developers off its platform, which has been its plan for a while now.

~~~
KhanMahGretsch
Never let a crisis go to waste.

------
nicodjimenez
You really have to admire Zuck for his leadership. He might be a cyborg, but
he's a damn good one.

------
wehadfun
This is a great way for facebook to get more information about their users.

------
simonsarris
Zuckerberg's original intention was to create a dating website for colleges.
It was obvious to eyeball this intent from the pre-wall days. Your page looked
like this:

 _I am a: [man]_

 _Interested in: [women]_

 _Relationship status: [single]_

 _Fave quotes, fave music, about me._

Then, all that got put on hold as FB was built out in every way except that
(including adding the Wall, and then the News Feed). They must have realized
that FB could be something much larger than a dating network, that would get
used indefinitely by its customers, without pigeonholing their primary use
case.

I'm surprised it took this long to pull the trigger on this feature, though.

~~~
jehlakj
I think by labeling themselves as a dating app on the side wouldn’t have
garnered as many users if they had done so much earlier. They wanted to be
_the_ social networking platform for as long as they possibly can. Well, with
the recent backlashes and incidents, they probably think they have just about
reached the peak number of users. I say it’s a well thought out timing and
execution.

~~~
AndrewUnmuted
Very well thought out timing, indeed. They’re cynically using sex to reel
younger users, and those grossed out by the Cambridge Analytica news, back
into their network.

~~~
cube00
But he promised it was only for meaningful relationships

------
thisisit
Most dating apps have some kind of integration with Facebook and/or Instagram
this seems like a no-brainer. I have seen apps use FB data about liked movies,
shows, places etc to generate matches. So, this should work very well.

Though that leaves a question - What next for apps relying heavily on FB data?

------
zerostar07
I cant wait for the facebook breakups feature next year. More seriously, it is
interesting how much power facebook has in setting social norms and this will
give it significantly more. They will be able to export american dating habits
worldwide.

~~~
pssflops
It already exists and you can 'take a break' from seeing other users' posts in
your feed for up to 30 days, initially.

------
didip
Dating service for FB is too obvious of a feature, I am surprised they just
start doing it now.

A social network is an obvious place for people to meet new people. I think
this is a really good idea for FB.

------
joewee
I’m not a huge Facebook fan these days, but I think this is an example of
market expansion that really makes sense. Instead of trying to find more
creative ways to advertise to users, identify new services you can sell
directly to users based off of all of the data you’ve collected on them.

------
crystaln
I can understand why they exclude Facebook friends. However I feel many of my
dating prospects are already Facebook friends who I have largely neglected, so
this feature would be a significant deterrent to me using the service. There
must be some compromise here.

Meeting someone briefly and adding them as a friend should not exclude them
from my dating pool! That would seem to hurt everyone involved - Facebook, me
and the other person.

------
sandGorgon
I have a thought that this is the consequence of GDPR. Just like Google's NBU
(Next Billion Users) division which focuses on the Indian subcontinent, I
think we will see a lot of Europe centric initiatives from the large
companies... primarily to service a vacuum that will be created because of the
GDPR.

Dating is a very contentious issue in Europe and USA because of the
GDPR,FOSTA,etc. I don't see anyone other than huge conglomerates being able to
muster the legal resources to win here.

~~~
e12e
I don't know - I think plain, focused dating sites are one of the few
businesses I could see getting away with "all the data because statistical
modelling and research" \- under the opt-in clauses of the GDPR.

Fb (and other incumbents) are at an advantage, because they have a window to
a/b test illegal profiles and algorithms against gdpr compliant ones, though.

------
EGreg
While I applaud Facebook finally focusing on facilitating real world
interactions, I am concerned with them getting more central control over
people’s lives.

Why hasn’t anyone else built an open source competitor to Facebook, like
Wordpress for social networks?

I started a company 7 years ago and put a lot of effort to build such a
platform. Now we recently launched 1.0 . I really thought someone would beat
us to it. But somehow we are the first complete platform to market?

Now we plan to make it easier to install, build a community, build a social
activity browser, and build out apps for communities.

Feedback welcome:

[https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI](https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=pZ1O_gmPneI)

~~~
always_good
People have tried. Have you looked around? It's just that building one is the
easy part, and the Wordpress model (social network in the box) isn't a
solution. It's just an impl detail. And people don't move away from the
service their friends and fam are on just because someone had yet another
crack at building a social network from scratch. It doesn't solve much beyond
"isn't Facebook" which just isn't very compelling branding to most people.

So yes, many people beat you to market. But notice how you don't even know
what or who they are. Nor does anybody else except some HN readers because
they don't have any real traction.

~~~
EGreg
If you don’t know who they are, how do you know they had a viable product?

------
galfarragem
Great tactical move. FB will get:

\- another income source from the same data. (ads and dating)

\- even more information about their users and in a _justifiable_ way. Users
want them to make good matches.

\- another costumer lock-in. It will be even more difficult to quit FB.

~~~
AnimalMuppet
Your second point is spot on. Users can't complain about FB collecting too
much data. "You want to find true love, right? Well, we need better data about
you to make it happen..."

But on your third point, I see an escape: Get married. Then you're free to
leave FB.

~~~
galfarragem
I would say that older generations are already locked-in, locking-in younger
generations is the problem.

~~~
noobermin
s/problem\\./problem that probably need not be solved./

------
bluetwo
Based on the number of stories I have heard about people hooking up with their
high school sweethearts via FB, it seemed to already be a dating app.

------
fma
Cambridge Analytica is going to love to get their hands on the questionnaire
you'd fill out for your dating profile.

------
y04nn
Can someone explain me my it has not been done (AFAIK) by someone else?

Facebook holds all the data needed and deep style of life analytics can be
performed on it to find the most suitable match. I had the idea to make an app
that exploits the data, but does Facebook API access restricted this kind of
usage?

Why Tinder, woking on a random principle is working so well?

~~~
ShorsHammer
Dating websites are incentivised to not help you find your perfect match and
long-term partner. Perhaps FB will be different, but I doubt it, especially if
there is monetisation involved.

It's one of the few industries where doing a good job means far less revenue
and customers.

~~~
y04nn
Good remark, I didn't thought about that.

------
e12e
> Users can launch text-only private messages, separate from Facebook
> Messenger or WhatsApp.

Now what's that about? You can keep your history of initial messages in your
messenger history after you're married/in a relationship?

Is this some poor idea of following Google in self-fracturing messenger apps
into incompatible silos?

------
tjoff
I get a feeling this will be pretty bad for people that don't already (or
start to) use facebook regularly.

And I'd hate to create yet another facebook account for this. So, yeah, as
shitty as the dating scene is I'd prefer a 3rd party so that I can attempt at
compartmentalize my accounts.

~~~
0xfaded
It’s already bad enough excluding oneself from messenger.

~~~
jokh
It's pretty much impossible to not use Messenger these days. I stopped using
Facebook, but I can't just quit Messenger unfortunately.

~~~
j79
But it's not impossible. I've never used Messenger.

~~~
jokh
Depends on how old you are and where you live. As a college student in North
America, everyone uses Messenger, nothing else. How would leaving Messenger
work without shrinking your social circle to 0? In other countries, like where
my family lives for example, no one uses Messenger or has heard of it —
everyone is on Whatsapp. So depends on your demographics.

~~~
908087
I assume these college students are using messenger via their _cell phones_ ,
correct?

Is it no longer possible to reach people via text or phone?

~~~
jokh
Nope, cell phones are the most popular method, but there's also a web app for
Messenger (messenger.com) which makes it even more convenient.

------
unixhero
Antitrust much?

Why couldn't Tinder go-ahead and sue them for anti-competitive behavior and
get the FTC with them.

------
finchisko
The question here is, what will be the ground left for startups? There are
already sectors, where barrier to join so high practically nobody new can join
(cars, banking, chip productions...). Do we really want web to become property
of few?

------
notadoc
Makes sense for Facebook to get into, considering people have been
unofficially using it as a dating service since its inception, and officially
using it indirectly through third party apps.

Will Tinder/Match etc make it possible to signup for their services without
Facebook?

------
forkLding
Created a similar app like this a while back which was dating between friends
and events, it had some traction but will face issues like seeing similar
people etc.

Link: [http://lucid.fyi](http://lucid.fyi)

------
intrasight
I thought that the purpose of FB from day one was to announce your
availability

------
harshgupta
One of the core advantages I see here is trust. It would be so much more
effective to match with someone who is connected to you by shared
people/interest, rather than just a photo card.

------
alphadevx
The greatest minds in our industry are focused on solving two main (apparent)
problems:

1\. How to we get people to click on more ads?

2\. How do we get more people laid?

Somehow I find this depressing, all that wasted talent.

------
onetimemanytime
They see the writing in the wall that tracking will be regulated and with that
a nice chunk of revenue is gone. So they try to make up for it, one vertical
at a time.

------
sjg007
Is this the moment Facebook jumps the shark?

------
danschumann
So now all the data they have about me browsing the internet can be used to
find a woman who has a complimentary meta data set? Hopefully she's pretty
too.

------
psion
The concern I have is that your dating profile will be hidden from people on
your friends list. It's a bit unsettling that someone can start a dating
profile hidden from an SO. And equally unsettling if FB blocked people who
list a relationship status if they are polyamorus.

~~~
thirdsun
Here's another perspective: As a Tinder user I definitely wouldn't use a
Facebook dating service if my profile was open and accessable to all of my
facebook friends. I value my privacy in this regard and don't want to showcase
a dating profile among friends.

And it's really not Facebook's duty to decide who should be able to date.

------
zerostar07
One big advantage that facebook will leverage is that they don't WANT you to
keep coming back for more dating. They 'll have you on the platform anyway, so
they might as well give you the best quality matches from the get-go (plus
they do have some of the best AI, so dating might even stop existing as a
thing in a few years)

~~~
corrigible
> they do have some of the best AI, so dating might even stop existing as a
> thing in a few years

Could you expound on your reasoning behind this?

~~~
zerostar07
good AI will find the best match first -> people switch profiles to "married"
-> average dating activity drops by a large %

~~~
corrigible
I think it is a little ambitious to think that dating will disappear because
FB announced a feature :)

~~~
zerostar07
"Dating" is predominantly an american phenomenon, but facebook has a ton of
different cultures in it. There are cultures that frown upon this "trial-and-
error" human algorithm.

------
rotub
This is going to make Facebook look cheap and gross if not executed well. It
will at the very least mean more fake accounts being created.

~~~
j79
Hey, you gotta impress investors somehow!

------
notyourday
It is going to suck to be any company in IAC portfolio that's not dating.

------
partycoder
I hope it is better than Facebook jobs. They are mostly $10/hr jobs.

------
pcthrowaway
I may as well throw in my suggestion for this feature, since I'm sure there
are facebook employees here somewhere:

Finder.

Like, Facebook meets Tinder.. but for finding companionship.

~~~
always_good
What do you mean by companionship? And what does FB meets Tinder actually
entail?

------
camillomiller
As a fierce Facebook critic, I admit that Facebook itself is a company with
amazing teams and outstandingly built services. Too bad it's also the company
with the worst possible track record on privacy, who championed scientifically
engineered attention grabbing as a tech tool.

I would sincerely like to see a paid for version of Facebook. I would easily
fork out as much as I fork out for Netflix for a service that would offer me
the same functions without all the profiling, with more granular control on
shaping the user experience (i.e. I would rearrange my FB dashboard to focus
on groups, events and messaging, while having the newsfeed as a secondary
page).

~~~
djflutt3rshy
Sure, but would you be willing to pay $25/year? That's about how much
Facebook's ARPU (average revenue per user) is in the US right now.

~~~
fjsolwmv
I use adblock so my ARPU is 0. Can I get a discount? :-)

~~~
mcbits
Not quite 0. If you participate in liking, sharing, or commenting on Facebook
posts that were sponsored at some point further up the chain, then you are
part of the value that Facebook offers to those advertisers. (Advertisers are
paying for the initial exposure _and_ the network effect.)

------
heifetz
makes sense, wondering why it took so long to roll out this feature, isn't
this one of the original uses that Zuck had in mind when he created Facebook?

------
wyck
You mean Facebook is launching a dating service for divorced moms?

------
mzs
I am glad I am married and in my forties so that I missed all this.

[https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2018/05/01/6065885...](https://www.npr.org/sections/health-
shots/2018/05/01/606588504/americans-are-a-lonely-lot-and-young-people-bear-
the-heaviest-burden)

~~~
always_good
On the other hand digital dating makes it easy to meet quite a volume of
people. When I feel like it, I can meet a different woman every other night.

I wouldn't even know how to do that without it.

The more women I can meet, the less I'm dependent on luck.

~~~
ggg9990
If I had met a new woman every night, I have no idea how I would have chosen
her specifically. And I really have no idea how she would have chosen me if
she had met a new man every night.

~~~
always_good
I don't understand what you're saying. If I'm talking to multiple women at a
time, there's pretty much one that rises above the rest in terms of chemistry:
We laugh more, she seemed particularly interested in me, she's cuter than
others, we talked for hours, we had sexual chemistry. Some combo of the above.

Over time I choose to spend more time with her, it turns into a relationship,
I stop talking to others. Same for women. This is how dating works.

Since women are the ones approached, they already are picking from a line of
suitors in general (compared to men) yet long term relationships are still
forged. How?

~~~
ggg9990
What I am saying is that by virtue of me not having met thousands of women in
a dating/romantic context, it was pretty clear to my wife and I, early on,
that we were working a lot better than any of our previous relationships.

It's like if you gave me three apples, and said "which one is the best," I'd
be able to tell you pretty easily. If you gave me two thousand, the best one
would probably be better, but I'd probably be very indecisive about which one
was best, and probably be wondering even as I picked it whether perhaps
another one was actually the best.

~~~
always_good
Well, it's not 2,000 apples at once though. That's not a realistic model of
how relationships work out.

It's more like balancing spinning plates. You don't have the bandwidth to keep
up more than a few, and you have a pretty good idea of which one is doing the
best. Some of the plates drop off, or you stop them, or the other party does,
and you can take on new ones as you please. Or you decide you're done looking.
But that's exactly what you did. You settled after some samples.

But worrying about indecision because you have so many options is like
worrying about exercise because you don't want to accidentally look like
Arnold Schwarzenegger, or not wanting to apply to too many jobs because you
don't want to have too many godlike offers to choose from; Having so many
women to choose from that you're indecisive is not easy and it's a quality
problem to have, but I don't think that's most men's realities despite their
efforts.

------
tuananh
no one is going to call it "facehook"?

------
crispinb
If I used online dating services, I'd be thrilled at this initiative: a lure
for the catastrophically stupid, hopefully keeping them off whatever
competitor I'd use.

------
wscott
headline: "Facebook doubles down on creepy"

------
tomkin
Facebook is AOL. We didn't like AOL for _reasons_. Can we just keep finding
those reasons valid, please?

------
thatgerhard
This is pretty much cardboard.. We need an open system for vr.

------
shadowtree
I wonder if they will enforce the various legal age limits for consensual
intercourse.

FB sign up limit is 13 years, no?

~~~
ponderatul
If they enforce it the same way porn websites enforce age restrictions(average
age of first porn video use is 11 years)... then it's another case of looking
a way at the harm they do while they praise the benefits.

------
kelvin0
Pivot?

------
breakpointalpha
Good move for Facebook.

Bad move for users.

------
megaman22
All the other dating sites just import your profile pictures and all your
personal information from Facebook anyway, so...

Kind of surprising it took this long.

------
trumped
Good... that's all I used Facebook for anyways... They might as well rename it
to FuckBlock

------
mike-cardwell
As somebody who doesn't use Facebook, it's going to be damned annoying if
everyone disappears off the existing dating apps and into the Facebook
ecosystem. It's becoming an evolutionary disadvantage to be off Facebook.

~~~
jehlakj
It’s disadvantageous even if you do have Facebook based on a number of
factors.

1\. You gotta be pretty photogenic. This is a very strange one because I find
more people more attractive in real life than in photos. The people who do
look appealing in photos tend to have more angular faces and better
proportions, but honestly in the end what matters most is how we look in real
life.

2\. You’re at an advantage if you’re extroverted and have pictures of you
attending many social events. A good number of “friends” that you randomly
hang out with helps too.

3\. If you want to stand out, you better hope you have a close friend who is
at least a hobby level photographer and goes out to most places with you.

Yea, I’m screwed. I never prepared myself to have an outstanding social
presence, and it’s too late at this point.

~~~
neumann
That's what [http://lifefaker.com](http://lifefaker.com) is for!

~~~
midasz
This could be straight off an in-game GTA website, brilliant.

~~~
zerostar07
that one is LifeInvader i think

------
s_kilk
This seems to be restricted to users who are not marked as married or in a
relationship, which excludes a whole swathe of people who are poly or
variously non-monogamous. Pretty disappointing, given this restriction isn't
there on other dating services.

~~~
Digit-Al
Wouldn't people who are poly or non-monogamous be less likely to have a
relationship status of 'married' or 'in a relationship'?

They did explicitly state that they want to promote 'relationships' not 'hook-
ups' so I guess that is the easiest way to achieve that. Maybe they'll add new
relationship status descriptions if people complain.

~~~
antris
_> Wouldn't people who are poly or non-monogamous be less likely to have a
relationship status of 'married' or 'in a relationship'?_

Quite the opposite, the more people you are seeing romantically, the more
likely you are married to at least one of them.

------
Brushfire
This is a big deal. And not just because it will obviously cause big problems
for existing dating sites, but instead because the longer-term prospects of
this strategy are the beginning of an amazon-like vertical strategy for
facebook.

Instead of being an "infrastructure" layer like they have touted to be in the
past, they are now getting into verticals. So anyone building a consumer
focused business that relies on a graph should be pretty paranoid about what
the future may hold, just as anyone in the retail/ecommerce world is already
scared of amazon. Especially if you're using facebook auth or facebook ads to
drive your business: because it tells them whether you're worth coming after
or not.

Think of the forces at play here:

\- (1) Facebook already has an enormous, aggressive, and well funded team
ready to pounce on new consumer apps that are up and coming. See Snapchat
features, and the dozens of other apps that have gotten to the first tier of
success only to be out gunned by facebook.

\- (2) The rapidly shrinking facebook API landscape (and related platforms),
due to the Cambridge analytics stuff and other concerns. API access is
shrinking, not growing, with many platforms (like WhatsApp) with no plans to
ever even have one.

\- (3) The prevalence of facebook ads as a "first place" to learn and iterate
on your business. If you think they are ignoring the rapidly scaling consumer
businesses, you're wrong.

\- (4) And now finally, their willingness to go into verticals instead of stay
at the infrastructure level. They have the perfect storm to come after any
consumer business with network effects at the core of its functionality.

~~~
bpicolo
> they are now getting into verticals

This is far from their first `vertical`. Events, groups, marketplace...
Eventbrite/whatever is still here, meetup is still here, and craigslist is
still here too.

~~~
iamspoilt
Well lets not just talk about North American markets.

To give an example, Facebook Marketplace has become a considerable threat for
"Small Items for Sale" category in emerging markets where classified websites
other than Craigslist are dominant.

With its strong user profile integration that keeps out fake sellers,
Marketplace has become a huge sell in countries like India, Pakistan and UAE.

I am definitely not surprised if Facebook would be going in for a vertical
approach. Messenger used to be a part of Facebook. It's a stand alone product
for a while now with bots for virtually anything (sellers are using them to
give out promo codes), a separate mobile app and even a web app.

However, I don't see this verticalization to necessarily happen as a non-
Facebook experience though. For Instagram, it makes sense to keep it that way
and not bring it inside Facebook. For Marketplace and Events, it might not be
the case because it needs that strong network affect and makes Facebook work
as a platform to find, do and participate in things.

~~~
QML
You can also cite micro communities in United States. For example, college
students use Facebook for anything from browsing memes to planning events to
subletting their houses for the summer. It’s a pretty convenient ecosystem to
tap into considering everybody’s already on Facebook (that was the original
target demographic).

~~~
iamspoilt
That's a good example and very common in Canada as well.

------
chollida1
from what my friends who work for dating sites tell me, they basically are
flickr for nude photos.

So we can't trust Facebook with our data but they want to store our nude
photos.

That's some professional level doubling down for you:)

On a serious note, RIP Match.com/IAC. They are getting blown up in the past 30
minutes.

Facebook should treat carefully, when you can just walk in and start owning an
entire category, that starts to get government attention for no other reason
that the failed companies complain....loudly.

I don't think FB wants more government attention at this point.

I always assumed that someone like Linked In, or even, Bloomberg would start a
dating app.

~~~
ovao
> So we can't trust Facebook with our data but they want to store our nude
> photos.

Unless they can monetize on your nude photos, Facebook doesn't want to store
them.

~~~
dsfyu404ed
FB can lobby for strict revenge porn laws that punish platforms and then sell
(limited) API access to the porn platforms so they can flag images they get as
possible revenge porn.

------
matte_black
I’m long MTCH and FB. I’m not worried, here’s why:

Despite what people think, Tinder (owned by MTCH) is not that dependent on
Facebook, people can sign up through alternative means, and will probably
continue to do so as their audience starts to bring in younger users over
time.

Facebook is better off buying Tinder outright than attempting to roll its own
platform. Sorry, as much as I believe in Facebook, some of their in house
projects never seem to pan out the way people think, though they do get
announced with a lot of fanfare.

I see a good entry point for new investors in MTCH in the coming days. I will
be increasing my position.

~~~
adventured
> Tinder which is owned by MTCH, increased it’s revenue by 8 billion in a
> relatively short period of time

That data isn't correct. Match has annual revenue of $1.33 billion. From Q4
2016 to Q4 2017, their revenue increased by $212 million, from $1.118 billion.
In their most recent reported quarter, they did $379m in revenue.

Match did $803m in revenue for fiscal 2013 for contrast. Their growth has been
modest and consistent over time.

~~~
matte_black
Ah you’re right, it was market cap, not revenue.

Eitherway, I’m still optimistic and wouldn’t be surprised if Facebook bought
out Tinder at some point.

------
askafriend
Cue the cynics on HN, but I think this is a very natural step for FB to take
and I think the product will do very very well.

Even if you're on a separate dating service like Tinder, you look up your
matches on FB anyway as a sanity test. FB already plays a large role in dating
and the signaling involved. It just makes sense for FB to own the process from
start to finish when they have the ability to do it better than any existing
dating app today.

FYI: Shares of Match Group (they are a public holdings company for many of the
popular dating sites out there) plunged after FB announced this.

~~~
jbob2000
Facebook marketplace has been a boon for buy/sell to me and my family. Kijiji
and craigslist are very sketchy, but with FB marketplace, you can see who the
person actually is. It makes us feel much more safe when we go to meet the
person.

I see FB dating as having similar success. I can see you and your connections
and validate that you aren't going to kill or rape me when we meet up for
coffee (or if you're male; I can see that you are a real person and not a
bot).

~~~
reaperducer
> Facebook marketplace has been a boon for buy/sell to me and my family

Interesting. In my area, Facebook Marketplace is almost all
stolen/burgled/shoplifted goods. People even call it "Fencebook."

Want a brand new, unopened PS/4 for $25? Fencebook to the rescue!

~~~
throwaway613834
...huh. How do you tell stolen goods from legitimate ones? Obviously the price
can't be the only factor since they could just try to sell it closer to a
realistic price.

~~~
mseebach
If you're buying something expensive, require an original invoice and check
that the serial number matches. If someone is apprehensive about that, somehow
they lost the invoice for the brand new unopened PS4 they bought last week, or
similar, just drop it.

If they're selling close to the original price, just get it from a shop
instead, that way you'll get warranty etc too (there's generally no warranty
on goods with "lost" invoices).

In general, look out for suspicious behaviour. Are they willing to meet with
you at their home or office? Do they readily share their phone number? Do they
have many excuses (one of the most common tells for liers are an excess of
over-thought out excuses) for not doing things transparently? If it's too good
to be true, it probably isn't true.

~~~
throwaway613834
Thanks! The trouble is all of these can fail for what I would consider
legitimate reasons. Requiring a receipt fails if they just open it, maybe even
use it a bit (or not), and wait a few months before selling it, since nowadays
people seem to genuinely go through some stuff (e.g. phones) pretty quickly
and not necessarily keep or have receipts, especially if they themselves
bought it second-hand. Meeting at my home or office is not something I would
ever feel comfortable doing, and is generally recommended against when
purchasing online. Sharing phone numbers is something I'd only do when the
decision to purchase has gone through and we're actively trying to meet up
(obvious privacy concerns), etc.

~~~
mseebach
It's not an exhaustive, binary checklist, they are signals to watch out for.
They are basically surrogates for trust. If you're selling something that
looks like it might have been stolen, you have to come up with a compelling
reason to trust you. Meeting at your office and sharing a business card might
be such a reason. If the only thing you're comfortable with is meeting in a
deserted parking lot late at night, and only communicating over a throwaway
anonymous email account, the counterpart is right to suspect something is
fishy. On the other hand, if you have an original invoice from the Apple
store, then it might be OK.

Sure, there are legitimate reasons for not getting any of these right, but if
they get _all_ of them wrong, be very careful.

