Meta is shutting down its video speed dating service, which it tested for much of the last year, and the company notified users of the service via a recent email. Last April, the company, formerly Facebook, confirmed that it was testing a new dating service called Sparked, which was developed by its in-house incubator NPE team.
Unlike modern dating apps, Sparked users generate matches by swiping their profiles, but only if they bring the serendipity associated with personal speed dating to online services.
With Sparked, daters will cycle through a series of short "video dates" with other locals in their area at pre-planned events. The team has already tested the service in specific markets, including Chicago, and hosts several "global" date nights throughout the year as well as specialized events aimed at LGBTQ users or other demographics.
Initially, Sparked users chat in a short four-minute video appointment, and if all goes well, they can go on to a 10-minute appointment. They can also choose to share their contact information with them, such as phone numbers, emails, or Instagram accounts.
Meta described Sparked at the time as a small external test designed to gain insight into how video dating works.
However, Sparked started experimenting with an online dating that doesn't include video chat last summer: audio dating. The service hosts several "audio only" date nights where users can chat with each other but don't appear in the video. Not coincidentally, Facebook Dating, Facebook Dating, also quickly launched a new feature called Audio Dating, and with that, likewise, offers users a way to start an audio chat with their object.
Now Sparked is closing stores. The company notified its testers via email that the service would be officially shut down on January 20, 2022.
The email reads: "We started building Sparked at the end of 2020 to help people find love through experiences rooted in kindness. Since then, thanks to your regular input and feedback, we've improved where we can improve, learned a lot, and built connections between people. Like many good ideas, some ideas have taken off, and some ideas, like Sparked, must end. ”
The email seems to imply that Sparked doesn't belong to the "take-off" of many good ideas. In other words, it didn't find traction.
A Meta spokesperson said in an interview that there was no more addition than what had already been shared in the emails sent to Sparked users.
The company is giving users a way to download their information from the Sparked website before it is finally shut down. However, after January 20, all user accounts will be deleted.
Meta shut down this experiment not surprisingly. Despite a large number of tests, including calling apps, memo makers, and even variants of popular social apps such as TikTok, Twitter, and Clubhouse, the NPE team's projects rarely found a permanent home in Meta as a standalone app. Currently, only three NPE projects are still running on the App Store in the U.S.: BARS, a TikTok-like app that focuses on rap music; Collab, a collaborative music production app; and Tuned, a couples app.
Meanwhile, Facebook's broader efforts at dating haven't proven to be as successful as incumbents. The Verge's analysis of Meta's own Facebook dating ads last spring showed that Facebook is working to convert its millions of users in cities into Facebook dating users — though the feature can be used directly in the Facebook app.
And Meta doesn't necessarily blame this on the pandemic. During the pandemic, there has been a surge in usage of top dating apps as people accept virtual dating, and this continues until 2021.
Facebook doesn't publicly share the numbers of its Facebook dating products, nor is it possible to determine its traction in other ways because it's a built-in feature inside Facebook.
In addition to the impossibility of meeting the criteria for continued investment, Sparked is also less suited to the NPE team's new vision of being an organization that is more focused on emerging markets than just the new consumer social experience.
The Group has established an office in Lagos, Nigeria, and is staffing another office in Asia. In addition, it plans to look for new ideas from the outside, including seed-stage investments in small startup teams.