After only a few weeks, Facebook’s new platform shows 40 dating applications. Most are enhanced ways to poke, match up or meet new people, only a few are based on actual dating sites.
Here are a few I came across that piqued my interest.
fbDating
Connections
Verbdate
Kathleen’s Wild and Crazy Poking Application
Poke Pro
Date Rate
Two useful apps I found, out of hundreds:
Facebook iPhoto Exporter
Facebook Toolbar for Firefox
Man, there are is so much stuff on there, will take a few days to sort out the good stuff from the junk running on someone’s dorm room server – Facebook has Authentic applications as well as a Wild West of just-about-anything-goes.
Looks like at least one application, fbDating, has a paid version.
One problem I have already, and one that I am surprise that FaceBook didn’t address, is the fact that now I am creating dating profiles on multiple dating sites within Facebook, each with it’s own custom fields.
I’ve worked with startups like like Opinity to create a meta-profile which would push out changes to multiple social networking sites. Given all the time various companies have spent on the concept, I thought Facebook would have something in place for the platform rollout. I was wrong.
Imagine how long it will take to sign up for 40 different dating sites on Facebook. Makes me tired just thinking about it. Someone has to come up with a single profile which can be shared across dating and other applications on Facebook. They already get access to your regular profile, how difficult is it to standardize on the FOAF protocol or some other “friendly” datastore that can be edited locally and have changes propogate out to all the applications you’re signed up for?
Here’s the Facebook Platform Wiki and the developer site. I am waiting for a major top-10 dating site to integrate with Facebook, so get moving.
