Facebook was granted a patent lately in march for a system that would allow it to build dating service into the site. The patent describes a way for facebook to identify friends of friends who might be single, based on “other commonalities or shared experiences.” When you see someone you like facebook would ask you for an introduction.
Facebook might also let you seek introduction to people with whom you do not have a friend of a friend connection. The patent suggests a system for showing you potential matches based on shared experiences , for example, in the patent are “ twins” , “cancer”, and “phone types” and allowing you to filter your search by age , location and constraint.
Some elements of the patent which was filed in 2014, sound as if they were simply describing Facebook’s current integration with Tinder. It makes several references to integration with the third party services or dating services. It also suggests new avenues for facebook, including one one in which it offers unspecified rewards for participating in dating services, potentially giving you access to Facebook’s entire user base.
Patent No. 9,609,072
Systems and methods for social dating are provided. In particular, some embodiments provide recommendations for connections (i.e., candidate users) based on a user’s social graph. These recommendations can identify potential single individuals that may be good matches for dating or can identify individuals with other commonalities or shared experiences to create dialog. For example, the recommendations for a user can include single individuals that are friends of a friend. The user can be presented with information about the recommendation and then ask for an introduction from the user’s friend. As another example, the recommendations can be based on subject matter selected by the user (e.g., twins, cancer, phone type, etc.) with or without any friendship connections. The user may also be able to filter or further refine the searches based on other criteria such as interests, location, age, and/or other constraints. Rewards can be provided in some cases to encourage participation.
Anonymous messaging: Patent No. 20170111327
Facebook focuses on making you use your real identity on the service is both controversial and lucrative. The company had filed an application for patent earlier this year for a a system that lets user establish anonymous communication between one another and maintain that channel so that they can continue their conversation without even learning the identity of the person they are talking with.
The anonymous communication described in the application is location based it allows you to contact people anonymously inly if they are certain distance away from you. In this, there is an app that showed you limited information about people in your area and invited you to message them. In one embodiment, a social networking system provides people look up service and establish anonymous communication session between users; creates contact association for future communication between users; and configures one or more privacy settings for users.
