April 15, 2021 5 min read

In a further effort to help its users find love, Facebook is testing Spark , a video speed dating app . Here we tell you how it works.

On the Sparkle website they describe the concept of this dating app as “video dating with friendly people” . Among its features, it mentions that there will be no public profiles nor will it work with ‘swipes’ to rate other users , as in Tinder and other similar apps. In addition, it will not allow you to send direct messages before you have an appointment and it will be free .

The app description emphasizes that kindness is key to being part of the community. When registering, users should write what makes them a “nice” quote to other people. Responses, Sparked explains, will be “human reviewed” before users can speed-date.

A Facebook spokesperson confirmed Sparked’s existence and called it an “initial experiment ,” according to statements to The Verge . He also noted that at this time it is only in a “small beta test .”

Don’t look for a partner, Facebook’s Sparked finds her for you

Although the application will not show public profiles, to register you must have a Facebook account and answer a questionnaire. There you will specify if you want to meet men, women or non-binary people, and if you are open to dating trans people.

^{Image: Sparked via The Verge .}

Apparently, the app will have two ways to set the meetings . On the one hand, it is speculated that the system will form the pairs based on the affinity shown by their data: characteristics, interests, etc. Then you will bring them together in video speed dates lasting four minutes.

If the brief meeting is a success and “both are having fun” , they can schedule a second video-appointment of 10 minutes. Only after this, and in case both are still interested, the platform will allow them to exchange their contact details and continue to ‘fan the spark’ through Instagram , iMessage or email .

On the other hand, the portal The Verge had access to a home page that referred to a dating event in Chicago that 47 people had registered to attend.

It is not clear how many ‘appointments’ a person will have for each event or if they will connect to these through the website. It is also not known whether they will need to download Sparked on their smartphone, as there is no active application in the App Store or Google Play Store.

Sparked, the next step after Facebook couples

Sparked would be the second platform to find partners launched by Mark Zuckerberg’s social network. In 2019, Facebook Dating began operating in the United States, and arrived in Mexico under the name of Facebook Parejas in September 2020, as a relief to the loneliness caused by the confinements of the COVID-19 pandemic.

This works in much the same way as most dating apps: users can view each other’s public profiles, send a ‘like’ or equivalent positive response, and wait to ‘match’ to start a conversation.

Sparkle’s initiative aligns with the video dating trend that dating apps such as Hinge , Tinder and Bumble have already implemented.

This responds to a fatigue on the part of users, who are already tired and apathetic at the idea of browsing hundreds of profiles only to discard the majority of candidates and then exchange some messages that rarely result in a date. Let’s not even talk about finding a viable partner.

In this scenario, the advantage of Sparkle would be, first and foremost, that it saves users the process of choosing potential candidates. It also helps them to skip the exchange of messages to go directly to the meeting ‘face or face’ by video call, where they can meet without the fear that the photos are false, as well as read the body language of the other, something that can say much more than a thousand direct messages.

Would you give Spark a chance?