Let’s say a single person wants to try out a handful of dating sites, kick the proverbial tires to see which one performs best for their certain circumstances — geographic location, age, sexual orientation, niche, etc.
Insanity is often defined as “Repeating the same behavior & expecting different results.” While not insane, filling out a dating site profile on multiple sites is annoying, time consuming and people usually fill out the bare minimum amount of personal information necessary to create an account. this is not great for them, and dating sites get clogged up with 1/2-completed profiles, not good either.
All of our personal information is already on Facebook, which is slowly giving third-parties access to our data. This is a win-win-win situation all around. Completed profiles, more people signing up, dating sites perceived as more useful and Facebook gets access to more personal information, which will be useful (we hope), when they figure out how to do target-marketing to members based on their profiles.
To that end, last week Facebook announced the Facebook Open Stream API.
The home page design centralizes the stream of information that tells you what’s going on right now in the world around you. With the Facebook Open Stream API users will be able to use applications to read and interact with their stream, anywhere. As a Facebook developer you’ll also be able to access the stories you’ve published into the stream and display them in your application, whether it’s on a mobile device, Web site or desktop, for users however you choose.
…To enable developers to access the stream, we’ve built the Facebook Open Stream API in part using the emerging Activity Streams standard.
We’ve also created robust new APIs called stream.get and stream.publish and new FQL tables that enable you to directly access the stream. With these new methods, you can access the stream on behalf of a user and then display the content in the manner most relevant for the user experience. You can filter, remix, or display the stream however you choose, wherever you choose. In addition, through other API methods, users can publish back into the stream, add comments, and even ‘likes’ to any stream item through any interface that publishes to the stream.
The Activity Stream is the first bit of information Facebook is making accessible to developers. While this doesn’t appear to include access to photos and the data in the Info tab, Facebook realizes that it’s quickly becoming *the* place for people to enter in their information and is making great strides towards becoming the center of our online universe. The privacy and legal issues are a bear to understand, much less manage, but it’s getting there.
Match recently rolled out an activity stream, which is a pseudo Activity Stream. To tell the truth I was mildly surprised at this. It’s a good start but they need to keep improving the feature to make it truly useful.
I don’t know when its going to happen, but sometime in the future I hope that when singles land on a dating site they will be able to click a button, read a Terms of Service and have their dating profile populated with their Facebook data.
The impact of this will be enormous. More people will join dating sites, profiles will be more dynamic and robust and dating sites will have deep connectivity with social networking sites. What’s not to like?
I would love to work with any dating sites who are considering the future of integrating Facebook data with their systems. I have lots of great ideas, some general strategies mapped out and have been talking with several talented Facebook developers about how to go about making all of this happen.
Developers, you’ll want to read Using the Open Stream API to get a handle on the plumbing behind the libraries.
Dating site owners should be at least marginally aware of what’s coming down the pike and how it will impact how you run your business. I’m happy to provide my perspective and insight.
LA Times has a nice high-level overview of the Facebok Open Stream.
