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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 s

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 8y ago
> 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.
- Brushfire 8y ago
  Sure. But are any of those businesses really doing well these days? For the longest time facebook told businesses that advertised heavily on their platform that they had no intention of getting deep into verticals, that instead those businesses should build on top of the facebook "infrastructure". And for a while it was relatively true; now all the gloves are off. If you're growing and profitable, and working with consumers, facebook will be coming for you.
  - ggg9990 8y ago
    I know a bunch of independent sellers of various things who say that they are getting more sales from Facebook Marketplace than Craigslist
    - redial 8y ago
      Not Craigslist tho.
    - notyourwork 8y ago
      With my recent move this was my experience. Everything listed on Craigslist and Facebook, every single sale was Facebook.
      - magduf 8y ago
        I'm in the process of a move/downsizing, near the DC area, and my experience is exactly the opposite. All the locals on Facebook waste my time with Messenger, and never follow through, whereas people on Craigslist actually show up with cash. I joined 10 local "yard sale" groups on FB plus Marketplace, posting everything in all of them plus CL, and all the sales are coming from CL. Facebook just seems to be full of flaky losers.
        notyourwork 8y ago
        Interesting - I wonder if it varies by region. A few years back I had mixed luck with both in Seattle, my recent experience is in Bay area. I do agree on Facebook there is more noise than I found on craigslist. I think this is because of the UX, Facebook makes it easy to send a false positive for interest whereas on craigslist it takes more effort and therefore reduces the signal to noise ratio for buyers who are actually interested.
        magduf 8y ago
        I think that's quite possible. On FB, I've gotten a lot of "lookey loos" popping up and asking me questions on Messenger, usually "is this still available?". So I answer them and half the time never hear from them again. With CL, they have to punch in a phone number, or use email to ask inane questions like that (which they do, just not as much).
- chaosite 8y ago
  Events & groups were in Facebook since before it went mainstream. They're a core component, not a new vertical. The marketplace features Facebook added to groups are a light support for how people were using groups anyway. Dating site like features on Facebook, besides just sending messages, were always apps.
- iamspoilt 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    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 8y ago
      That's a good example and very common in Canada as well.
  - visarga 8y ago
    network affect? like in network feelings?
    - iamspoilt 8y ago
      See this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect This is particularly useful when trying to find new events per se. For example, I see a friend marking himself "interested" for a particular event on Facebook. I do the same and reach him out on Messenger to ask him / her to go together. I have to stick to Facebook because one way or the other, it gives me an avenue to socialize because people I know are there, use it regularly and are contributor to the network effect.
- csomar 8y ago
  Their marketplace, groups and events have took some marketshare in the country I live in (albeit a small one). For example, for cars, I relied on Facebook as most users moved there. Many events are now running on Facebook as they can "spam" users with the invites. It is not there yet adoption wise, but also their product is not up to the standards of eventbrite for example.
- debt 8y ago
  It’s the first vertical because the competition lost actual dollars off their share price because it.
- saudioger 8y ago
  they even tried Q&A for a brief period of time, and messenger of course
- tluyben2 8y ago
  Marketplace did not yet take over local sites, but it's getting there for a lot of people. They hated having to move off facebook to some 'inconvenient site' (yes, indeed, many people find sites other than Facebook & Whatsapp very inconvenient to work with) to sell their stuff, while now it's an easy experience for them. I see it growing rapidly every day where I live (south of Spain). Considering many people are born into Facebook (the first (and often only) device they (will ever) own is a smartphone and that they use for Facebook and Whatsapp), it is very natural that many people just stay in that eco system and prefer never to leave because it's so convenient. Dating might be seen as a bit too much though; many people (for whatever reasons they have for it) prefer to keep their dating life away from their normal interactions. It depends on how it works, but it seems unlikely it will be seperated from the normal experience which I think will be a big hurdle for many. Then again, maybe it's already known and fixed as this is the first time I read about it.
  - aje403 8y ago
    Not sure where you're from, but meeting and dating people on Facebook is extremely common and normal in US
    - tluyben2 8y ago
      My post says where I live, and for younger people that might be the case too, I wouldn't know. But then how do you meet new people and what does the new dating feature add?
    - franciscop 8y ago
      It literally says it in the comment: south of Spain. As someone from the east of Spain I totally agree with tluyben2 experience
      - aje403 8y ago
        No shit sherlock, I’m pointing out that Spain, a small market, is not representative of everything Edit: should also point out you might just be a neckbeard or fogey and may be unaware of your more socially aware fellow spaniards using Facebook to date
- toomanybeersies 8y ago
  I find that I use Facebook Groups and Events more than Meetup. Facebook Marketplace is really good for niche buying and selling, since you can have a group dedicated to specific topics.
- wyck 8y ago
  And jobs, a huge threat to job sites.
  - Brushfire 8y ago
    Almost certainly the next big vertical stop for Facebook. It's what I would do.
amelius 8y ago
> 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. Just don't go after generic solutions, but choose a niche.
nerdponx 8y ago
Don't forget they have an enormous amount of data from years of Tinder integration.
- foota 8y ago
  Would fb get anything other than who used the app from that?
  - e12e 8y ago
    Considering they already have relashionship data (x is in a relationship with y, x is now single, etc) - on which they might be able to predict matching data; the other missing thing is knowing who might want to date. Which I guess correlates pretty well with "installs tinder".
systematical 8y ago
The web is contracting and consolidating. Whether that is good or bad is debatable. Its the natural course of capitalism to monopolize and we're seeing it on the web. How long before we see the first attempt to break one up? Would it even matter?
chj 8y ago
Reminded me of Chris Dixon's S-Curve https://medium.com/@cdixon/why-decentralization-matters-5e3f79f7638e https://medium.com/@cdixon/why-decentralization-matters-5e3f...
- bduerst 8y ago
  Why did they pick an S-curve? Why not log or linear? I couldn't really tell from the article.
  - Someone 8y ago
    At the time scales considered, world population/market size is more or less constant. That means exponential growth (a reasonable guess at what the curve looks like, initially) has to plateau, eventually.
kakarot 8y ago
2010 called, they wanted to let you know Facebook has been going vertical for a long time. They haven't even been secretive about it. Look at their last big vertical push: Facebook marketplace. They're just trying to follow Google's footsteps to become a full Internet portal. That's why Zuck tried so hard to bring Facebook Zero to India and Africa, and why Zuck is kissing Jinping's feet. They want nothing short of complete market domination.
zebraflask 8y ago
I stopped using Facebook several years ago, and it was already a dating app at that time. That was more or less the point of the thing. How is this new?
sytelus 8y ago
The biggest problem is fitting these verticals in to look and feel of Facebook. This is actually lot harder than you think because the core business requires that you still need to be sharply focused on news feed. Perhaps this is the reason lot of verticals that already exists hasn't driven competitors in to extinction. They have to figure out the design (like Yahoo did in its early days with simple but prominent tabs which Google followed up with its own simple but prominent tabs in search results) so people get used to think of FB as collection of verticals as opposed to place to go read news feed - but this would be a significant change in strategy and business bottom line.
- wastedhours 8y ago
  100% agree with this - it's one of the main reasons (other than ad payouts) why they're not massively competing with YouTube just yet. News Feed is their core, but it's also what's been holding them back from really destroying other markets - the discoverability mechanics (you never know what's coming up, so keep scrolling...) of the News Feed are a blessing and a curse. When they break themselves away from this (which they arguably have with their attempts to embed more in Messenger - I can foresee a future test being you subscribing to video channels/news brands in Messenger and having bots push the latest vids out, history repeats itself), and open up a few more interaction mechanics, things could change.
ece 8y ago
People are usually careful to not use too many services from the same provider to not give the provider too much data. This used to be true at least, and was the argument heard when Google+ launched.
justinclift 8y ago
There's also the "Eugenics" angle here too. :( If Facebook gains access to people's medical data (as Google definitely has), they could literally use this "dating feature" as a high level population breeding program. With the level of ethics they've displayed so far - practically none - it wouldn't be super surprising to find them doing it. :/
- jfz 8y ago
  It would actually be surprising to find them doing it. Even from a business perspective, their other breaches of ethics (and privacy) all made them money. Large-scale eugenics wouldn't make money for FB, at least not in the next 18 years.
  - justinclift 8y ago
    Hmmm, I disagree. It's not at all hard to think of at least a few countries whose leadership would happily engage them for this. They'd be the one's paying money for Facebook to do "targeted dating influenced by specific factors". ie genetics. Depending upon the verification/validation of results they want, it's probably not an 18 year wait. Initial data would be what... school grades entered into centralised system (guessing)? Higher year level grades, aptitude tests, uni/college (etc) would be follow on ones down the track. Anyway, the point doesn't seem far fetched at all. And Facebook + medical data would be right there. :/

bpicolo 8y ago

> 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.

Brushfire 8y ago
Sure. But are any of those businesses really doing well these days? For the longest time facebook told businesses that advertised heavily on their platform that they had no intention of getting deep into verticals, that instead those businesses should build on top of the facebook "infrastructure". And for a while it was relatively true; now all the gloves are off. If you're growing and profitable, and working with consumers, facebook will be coming for you.
- ggg9990 8y ago
  I know a bunch of independent sellers of various things who say that they are getting more sales from Facebook Marketplace than Craigslist
  - redial 8y ago
    Not Craigslist tho.
  - notyourwork 8y ago
    With my recent move this was my experience. Everything listed on Craigslist and Facebook, every single sale was Facebook.
    - magduf 8y ago
      I'm in the process of a move/downsizing, near the DC area, and my experience is exactly the opposite. All the locals on Facebook waste my time with Messenger, and never follow through, whereas people on Craigslist actually show up with cash. I joined 10 local "yard sale" groups on FB plus Marketplace, posting everything in all of them plus CL, and all the sales are coming from CL. Facebook just seems to be full of flaky losers.
      - notyourwork 8y ago
        Interesting - I wonder if it varies by region. A few years back I had mixed luck with both in Seattle, my recent experience is in Bay area. I do agree on Facebook there is more noise than I found on craigslist. I think this is because of the UX, Facebook makes it easy to send a false positive for interest whereas on craigslist it takes more effort and therefore reduces the signal to noise ratio for buyers who are actually interested.
        magduf 8y ago
        I think that's quite possible. On FB, I've gotten a lot of "lookey loos" popping up and asking me questions on Messenger, usually "is this still available?". So I answer them and half the time never hear from them again. With CL, they have to punch in a phone number, or use email to ask inane questions like that (which they do, just not as much).
chaosite 8y ago
Events & groups were in Facebook since before it went mainstream. They're a core component, not a new vertical. The marketplace features Facebook added to groups are a light support for how people were using groups anyway. Dating site like features on Facebook, besides just sending messages, were always apps.
iamspoilt 8y ago
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 8y ago
  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 8y ago
    That's a good example and very common in Canada as well.
- visarga 8y ago
  network affect? like in network feelings?
  - iamspoilt 8y ago
    See this: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Network_effect This is particularly useful when trying to find new events per se. For example, I see a friend marking himself "interested" for a particular event on Facebook. I do the same and reach him out on Messenger to ask him / her to go together. I have to stick to Facebook because one way or the other, it gives me an avenue to socialize because people I know are there, use it regularly and are contributor to the network effect.
csomar 8y ago
Their marketplace, groups and events have took some marketshare in the country I live in (albeit a small one). For example, for cars, I relied on Facebook as most users moved there. Many events are now running on Facebook as they can "spam" users with the invites. It is not there yet adoption wise, but also their product is not up to the standards of eventbrite for example.
debt 8y ago
It’s the first vertical because the competition lost actual dollars off their share price because it.
saudioger 8y ago
they even tried Q&A for a brief period of time, and messenger of course
tluyben2 8y ago
Marketplace did not yet take over local sites, but it's getting there for a lot of people. They hated having to move off facebook to some 'inconvenient site' (yes, indeed, many people find sites other than Facebook & Whatsapp very inconvenient to work with) to sell their stuff, while now it's an easy experience for them. I see it growing rapidly every day where I live (south of Spain). Considering many people are born into Facebook (the first (and often only) device they (will ever) own is a smartphone and that they use for Facebook and Whatsapp), it is very natural that many people just stay in that eco system and prefer never to leave because it's so convenient. Dating might be seen as a bit too much though; many people (for whatever reasons they have for it) prefer to keep their dating life away from their normal interactions. It depends on how it works, but it seems unlikely it will be seperated from the normal experience which I think will be a big hurdle for many. Then again, maybe it's already known and fixed as this is the first time I read about it.
- aje403 8y ago
  Not sure where you're from, but meeting and dating people on Facebook is extremely common and normal in US
  - tluyben2 8y ago
    My post says where I live, and for younger people that might be the case too, I wouldn't know. But then how do you meet new people and what does the new dating feature add?
  - franciscop 8y ago
    It literally says it in the comment: south of Spain. As someone from the east of Spain I totally agree with tluyben2 experience
    - aje403 8y ago
      No shit sherlock, I’m pointing out that Spain, a small market, is not representative of everything Edit: should also point out you might just be a neckbeard or fogey and may be unaware of your more socially aware fellow spaniards using Facebook to date
toomanybeersies 8y ago
I find that I use Facebook Groups and Events more than Meetup. Facebook Marketplace is really good for niche buying and selling, since you can have a group dedicated to specific topics.
wyck 8y ago
And jobs, a huge threat to job sites.
- Brushfire 8y ago
  Almost certainly the next big vertical stop for Facebook. It's what I would do.

amelius 8y ago

> 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. Just don't go after generic solutions, but choose a niche.

nerdponx 8y ago

Don't forget they have an enormous amount of data from years of Tinder integration.

foota 8y ago
Would fb get anything other than who used the app from that?
- e12e 8y ago
  Considering they already have relashionship data (x is in a relationship with y, x is now single, etc) - on which they might be able to predict matching data; the other missing thing is knowing who might want to date. Which I guess correlates pretty well with "installs tinder".

systematical 8y ago

The web is contracting and consolidating. Whether that is good or bad is debatable. Its the natural course of capitalism to monopolize and we're seeing it on the web. How long before we see the first attempt to break one up? Would it even matter?

chj 8y ago

Reminded me of Chris Dixon's S-Curve https://medium.com/@cdixon/why-decentralization-matters-5e3f79f7638e https://medium.com/@cdixon/why-decentralization-matters-5e3f...

bduerst 8y ago
Why did they pick an S-curve? Why not log or linear? I couldn't really tell from the article.
- Someone 8y ago
  At the time scales considered, world population/market size is more or less constant. That means exponential growth (a reasonable guess at what the curve looks like, initially) has to plateau, eventually.

kakarot 8y ago

2010 called, they wanted to let you know Facebook has been going vertical for a long time. They haven't even been secretive about it. Look at their last big vertical push: Facebook marketplace. They're just trying to follow Google's footsteps to become a full Internet portal. That's why Zuck tried so hard to bring Facebook Zero to India and Africa, and why Zuck is kissing Jinping's feet. They want nothing short of complete market domination.

zebraflask 8y ago

I stopped using Facebook several years ago, and it was already a dating app at that time. That was more or less the point of the thing. How is this new?

sytelus 8y ago

The biggest problem is fitting these verticals in to look and feel of Facebook. This is actually lot harder than you think because the core business requires that you still need to be sharply focused on news feed. Perhaps this is the reason lot of verticals that already exists hasn't driven competitors in to extinction. They have to figure out the design (like Yahoo did in its early days with simple but prominent tabs which Google followed up with its own simple but prominent tabs in search results) so people get used to think of FB as collection of verticals as opposed to place to go read news feed - but this would be a significant change in strategy and business bottom line.

wastedhours 8y ago
100% agree with this - it's one of the main reasons (other than ad payouts) why they're not massively competing with YouTube just yet. News Feed is their core, but it's also what's been holding them back from really destroying other markets - the discoverability mechanics (you never know what's coming up, so keep scrolling...) of the News Feed are a blessing and a curse. When they break themselves away from this (which they arguably have with their attempts to embed more in Messenger - I can foresee a future test being you subscribing to video channels/news brands in Messenger and having bots push the latest vids out, history repeats itself), and open up a few more interaction mechanics, things could change.

ece 8y ago

People are usually careful to not use too many services from the same provider to not give the provider too much data. This used to be true at least, and was the argument heard when Google+ launched.

justinclift 8y ago

There's also the "Eugenics" angle here too. :( If Facebook gains access to people's medical data (as Google definitely has), they could literally use this "dating feature" as a high level population breeding program. With the level of ethics they've displayed so far - practically none - it wouldn't be super surprising to find them doing it. :/

jfz 8y ago
It would actually be surprising to find them doing it. Even from a business perspective, their other breaches of ethics (and privacy) all made them money. Large-scale eugenics wouldn't make money for FB, at least not in the next 18 years.
- justinclift 8y ago
  Hmmm, I disagree. It's not at all hard to think of at least a few countries whose leadership would happily engage them for this. They'd be the one's paying money for Facebook to do "targeted dating influenced by specific factors". ie genetics. Depending upon the verification/validation of results they want, it's probably not an 18 year wait. Initial data would be what... school grades entered into centralised system (guessing)? Higher year level grades, aptitude tests, uni/college (etc) would be follow on ones down the track. Anyway, the point doesn't seem far fetched at all. And Facebook + medical data would be right there. :/