Facebook is making a Tinder killer to help people find dates — 'not just hookups'

Mark Zuckerberg announced that Facebook would soon be rolling out dating features during the keynote speech at its F8 conference on Tuesday.
Zuckerberg said that Facebook is focused on helping people build meaningful relationships, and that it wouldn't be "just for hookups."
The keynote comes just weeks after Zuckerberg had to testify in front of Congress about its data scandals, but the CEO assured the audience that it was designed "with privacy and safety in mind from the beginning."

Mark Zuckerberg just announced that Facebook is joining the dating game, to help users build perhaps "the most meaningful relationship of all."

The announcement came during the keynote of this year's F8, Facebook's annual developer conference where CEO Mark Zuckerberg and his executive team generally unveil what the company has been working on for the last year. It turns out one of those things is a competitor to apps like Tinder and Hinge, although he emphasized the intent to build longterm relationships, and "not just hookups."

It's unclear how exactly developers could control that aspect of it, but security was apparently taken seriously while it was being built. "I want to be clear that we have designed this with privacy and safety in mind from the beginning," Zuckerberg said.

Facebook's chief product officer, Chris Cox, took the stage to provide more depth, explaining that the idea stemmed from couples who had told Zuckerberg that meeting their partner was the most important thing that ever happened to them on Facebook. The goal was to make a product that would let more couples do the same "in a way that was opt-in, in a way that was safe, and in a way that took advantage of the unique properties of the platform, and didn't get in the way of everyone who wasn't interested in dating."

Here's what we know about Facebook's new dating features so far:

The features are going to be opt-in and available in the Facebook app itself, via an icon in the upper right that takes you to a portal called "Dating Home."

Users make a dating profile that uses only their first name and can't be seen by friends or in news feeds — it's exclusively visible to other people who have also opted in to the dating service.

This is how your feed will look at the top.

Scrolling down, you'll see events in your city and groups related to your interests.

When you unlock an event, you'll unlock the profiles of the people using the dating service who are also attending the event. Presumably, they'll be able to see your profile at that point too.

To start a conversation with another person, you'll hit "Interested." It's not clear whether Facebook will allow any Tinder-esque swiping gestures, but there's also the ability to "pass" if you're not interested.

Once you've selected "interested," you can then choose a photo from their profile to talk about to help start a conversation."This will encourage, we hope, a more meaningful interaction," Facebook exec Chris Cox said.

If the user decides to respond, they'll send a private message conversation that isn't connected to WhatsApp or Messenger and is text-only "as a safety measure."

Here's what your private inbox will look like.

We may have a deeper understanding of what the app might look like: Patents previously filed by Facebook show designs for a dating site, as Gizmodo's Kashmir Hill noticed.

We can't be completely sure that the layout or functionality stayed the same from the patent filing to product development, but it's a good way to see what Facebook's thinking is when approaching a new service like dating.

Facebook hasn't said exactly when the new dating features will launch, but they're said to be coming soon.

Facebook is making a Tinder killer to help people find dates — 'not just hookups'

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