Yahoo Finance Facebook tests video speed dating for 'kind people'
Facebook is experimenting with a video speed-dating app in the hope it can lure a generation of TikTok fans who have grown tired of scrolling through static images while looking for love.
The app, named Sparked, requires a Facebook account to log in. It is the creation of Facebook’s New Product Experimentation team, a secretive department focused on testing out apps for Android and Apple that can stand alone from its core Facebook products: WhatsApp, Facebook and Instagram.
In an apparent dig at Tinder, one of the most popular dating apps among young people, Sparked says it will not offer public profiles, the ability to swipe through pictures of possible courtiers nor send “endless DMs”, or direct messages.
Instead, the app will allow people to quickly enter video chats with other users before picking on someone they might like to date.
The focus is on meeting “with kind people”, its website claimed. It is not clear when - or if - the app will officially launch, as it is not currently taking signups. Facebook launched a separate dating service in the UK at the height of the pandemic. Facebook dating allows its existing users to “match” with courtiers and go on virtual dates using Facebook’s video call tool.
Those looking for love can build a dating profile using the information Facebook already has stored. A secret crush might be revealed to an admirer if both users have each other on their list. Using the opt-in feature, which can be found in the Facebook app, potential dates can see whether they have mutual friends and common interests. The switch to video only apps has attracted investor attention in Silicon Valley. Dating websites have long experimented with video but investors now believe that the latest technology and public mood is ready for moving image.
Video dating app Snack secured $3.5m in funding this year. Its founder Kim Kaplan, who helped build incumbent dating website Plenty Of Fish, described Snack as:“Tinder meets TikTok for Generation Z”. Snack combines the matching algorithms of dating websites and apps like Bumble and Tinder with the ability to stream live, more like Instagram or TikTok.
