The Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic has caused people to have been forced to limit their social activities that they usually carry out in person, triggering the use of video communication platforms on the Internet for different purposes, even to flirt.
In this regard, Facebook’s New Product Experimentation Team (NPE) is now bringing a new social app that brings the well-known speed dating to the digital realm.
Taking speed dating into the digital realm
Sparked, which is what the application is called, calls virtual encounters, where attendees will share four minutes with each person, according to the preferences on the type or types of people with whom you want to contact, although at the moment the maximum number of people with whom each attendee will be contacted in each call is unknown.
It is only known that If an attendee wants to know more about one of the people with whom they have been contacted, or how it is seen from the application, they have had a good time together, they will both be summoned a second appointment of ten minutes duration, where they will, among other things, share their contact information, among other things that they wish to communicate.
As The Verge initially discovered, this new social app will have no public profiles, no direct messages, and no finger slides, although you must have a Facebook user account to be able to use it for free.
For now it only has a web-based version, there is currently no application for Android and iOS.
In addition, In the entry process, users must argue the reasons why they are considered friendly people, arguments that will be reviewed by a Facebook person before giving the go-ahead to be part of the application.
For now Sparked is limited to a small group of users. For now, the possible interest of Facebook for this, which will be its second dating application, is unknown, already having Facebook Dating in its main application, launched in 2019 in the United States, expanding over time to other territories, such as Spain.
The truth is that Facebook Dating works like many other dating platforms, while Sparked’s approach takes advantage of the rise of video communications motivated by the limitation of social activities to offer a different dynamic.
Over time, we will see Facebook’s interest in this new application, currently in an experimental phase, taking into account that the applications that are born under the bosom of the NPE barely manage to graduate to become stable products of the company, so we do not know If Facebook make a different decision that clearly bets on Sparked or is simply for one more application that then goes unnoticed by the public given the scant attention.
Image Credit: The Verge
