Facebook introduced a dating feature for its platform at last year’s developers conference, however the feature hasn’t been launched in many countries.
In the five countries that it has been operating — with 14 more added to the list as of now — Facebook has introduced a ‘Secret Crush’ feature to its Facebook Dating platform which allows users to see which of the friends on their list might secretly admire them romantically.
The feature was introduced at this year’s F8 developers conference on Tuesday and has gone live on Facebook in the countries where Dating is available.
The Secret Crush feature lets users show interest in up to 9 friends on the list.
So how this works is that if a Facebook Dating users has a friend on their list who is also using Facebook’s dating platform and likes you back, you’d get a notification saying “someone likes you”. If they pick you as one of their secret crushes then you both get notified.
A similar feature exists in Tinder which lets users know who likes them so that they'd have an option to like them back. This however is a paid feature.
In this you have the option to add any of your friends on Facebook even if they don't have a dating profile. This could be a window for other Facebook users to give Dating a shot. I mean, who wouldn’t be curious enough to know who has a crush on them.
At the moment, Facebook Dating is only available via the Facebook app and accessible to users above 18 years of age.
It's free and does not have a premium membership fee nor any ads. When you sign up for Facebook Dating you'll be asked to create a separate dating profile with limited amount of personal information which will be shown to potential matches.
There is no news on when Dating and the features associated with it will come to India, if ever.
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