Facebook is testing a speed-dating video app

Facebook’s online dating aspirations are neither new nor surprising. The social network has more than 2 billion users worldwide, already interconnected by the means of friends, groups, pages, and more.

That’s why Facebook Dating was born to nobody’s surprise two years ago. It’s easy to match people when their profiles are already online and in most cases - extremely thorough. Now though, in these COVID-infested times, Facebook thinks that people need to see each other more.

When everybody is working from home and zoom meetings are the new normality, a dating app that relies on video makes all the sense. And because we’re all so busy, it’s a speed-dating app. The name’s Sparked and it’s a brainchild of Facebook’s skunkworks division - the NPE (New Product Experimentation) Team.

According to The Verge, Sparked relies on 4-minute dates that users speed through, and if someone catches your attention you can go on a longer second date. There’s no swiping, direct messaging, or public profiles of any kind - you need to have a Facebook profile, though.

For the moment, Sparked is only browser-based, there’s no iOS or Android version of the service. You can try and find your perfect partner in less than four minutes at the app's official website.