The new facebook dating app

IN THE NOT-SO-DISTANT future, it will no doubt be commonplace for a father to lean over and tell his kid, “It’s true, Junior, I knew she was the one as soon as I swiped right.”

As dating-app giants—from Tinder to Match to Hinge—evolve, they continue to amass users and facilitate relationships. Tinder’s brazen “Super Like” feature is the digital equivalent of walking over to a stranger at a party to compliment them, and, according to the app, leads to 70% longer conversations.

Meanwhile Facebook showed up late to the dating-app party with little to offer except its reach. With its launch of Facebook Dating, the social-media stalwart seems to be banking on its more than 1.5 billion active daily users, instead of, say, radical innovation or insightful use of its data. Its research did reveal that “40% of online daters don’t feel that there’s a dating app out there that meets their needs,” according to a spokesperson for the platform.

Facebook kept it (possibly too) simple. The extension is built into your existing app: Just click the lines at the bottom of your screen, select Dating and “Get Started.” Your dating resume is super easy to set up as it largely repurposes your Facebook profile for its foundation. From there you can add basics like an “about me” blurb, your age, height, job, education and “Lifestyle,” which is oddly based solely on whether or not you have kids.

What you can’t easily jot down is your aim, the most crucial part of a dating profile, said sex and relationships coach Shelby Sells. “Not everyone is on there for the same reasons. Some people want a casual hookup, others are looking for romance.” So jumping in may be simple, said Ms. Sells, but Facebook Dating requires extra effort to be successful.