Facebook has already taken the best of so many social networks into its interface, from Snapchat’s popular filters to Instagram’s stories. This time around, a new feature will feature on the platform that will be reminiscent of Tinder’s own service. Facebook thinks that its users are not being social enough and has the company has decided to add a new feature to make users remember their old friends, as well as be introduced to new ones who may have a few interests in common with them.
According to reports, the company will be rolling out a feature that will enable users to get a closer look that their mutual friends that they share with their other friends. The Facebook app will urge users to get to know some friends and once the user taps on the option, they will be shown common events attended, pages liked and places they had visited or lived. This option has previously come in the form of the “Discover People” tab, which had also gone through a trial run back in February of 2017.
This time around, Facebook is discreetly asking people if they would like to make plans with their friends. They would both only be able to know about it if both of them respond positively to the plan, upon which, Facebook will urge them to strike up a conversation on Messenger. Should both the users select the “no” option, there will not be a response. As of now, very few people have access to this feature and there is no name that has been assigned to this feature. Facebook did confirm that they were testing it in Toronto and New Zealand.
The intention of the new feature is meant to be more than just to emulate a Tinder-like experience. Because of the setting that Facebook is established upon, the feature will allow for users to search for romantic interests and actual people to hang out with. While the option is still under its beta phase for now, it could be a permanent fixture in the future of the social networking platform. Unfortunately, Facebook will be called out for now including a feature that has been predominantly Tinder’s expertise. The company now has features that are present in almost all social networks and image sharing platforms, but those individual features are still not as popular as their original pioneering platforms.
When the meetups feature does roll out, Facebook will have to deal with how the feature should be attempted at, since there are ways for outsiders to take advantage of it, especially if they want to connect with seemingly unsuspecting “mutual friends”.