Facebook, Facebook dating, it makes sense. Actually, to be honest I’m surprised it took this long to flesh out. If you haven’t heard or haven’t seen the notification on your app, Facebook just quietly released its new dating platform across it’s millions upon millions of users. With Facebook now entering the digital dating game, apps like tinder, bumble, and match need to fucking watch their backs.
Yes, it’s true, Facebook now not only tracks your grandmothers’ check-ins at Applebee’s, it is also setting out to find you the love of your life. And yes, although you can finally rekindle that relationship with Rebecca from High School, you’re now giving up your relationship preferences to the website that knows every other fucking thing about you.
There’s a lot of concern over privacy and rightfully so, after Cambridge Analytica it’s hard to ignore the growing problems for the world’s largest data miner. Although the concerns are huge, I can’t help but to think that this will be wildly successful for the company. They don’t need users, because they already have them, they don’t need to care about a budget, because theirs is basically infinite, and finally they don’t need to worry about the “First-To” they are late competitor in the game, they can learn from others mistakes and successes. Yes, of course if you are a user and care about your data and privacy, I suggest not using Facebook Dating, however I’m sure that platform will beat out all the others. Which brings me to this, the person that should worry the most are the people at Match Group (they own a plethora of dating apps and sites). They WILL lose customers and active users, they ARE going to take a massive hit. I hope they are ready to respond and quickly recover. Can’t have this be another Block Buster Netflix situation.
The reaches of online dating have hit a new horizon with this announcement. Many players, strategies, and user interactions are going to have to change. With Facebook now looking at a entirely new avenue, many competitors will have to amplify what they do now to create results. Competition is healthy and determines a lot about a companies "moat" but keep in mind huge companies doing thing like this have failed in the past (looking at you Google+). It's a daunting task but not impossible.
Now we have a whole new platform to embarrass ourselves on, I wonder what cringe pick up lines will come out of Facebook Dating. We. Shall. See.
At least, that's my take on it. Until next time.
-GS
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