First, thing I’d like to clarify what success of Facebook dating means. It’s not competing with other platform like bumble and tinder. It is feature inside Facebook, so success of this has to be measured in two levels: what it does for the dating experience itself and what it does for Facebook as a platform.
At feature level, I’d ignore matches as primary metric. Matches are easy to generate algorithmically and mean nothing without follow-through. The metric that matters is conversation quality: did a match lead to conversation, and did that conversation continue beyond first exchange? That is where genuine connection starts from.
At platform level, the question is whether dating creates incremental value for Facebook. Are Dating users opening Facebook more often and engaging across other surfaces? If yes, Dating is strengthening the ecosystem. If dating users churn faster than non-dating users, the feature is failing regardless of what level of match numbers show.
Trust dimension is also critical, Facebook has complicated privacy reputation, and Dating sits in a sensitive category. If the feature triggers privacy concern or reputation damage, it hurts the core platform even if the engagement is healthy.
My north star metric is conversation continuation rate: the percentage of matches that result in conversation lasting more than three exchanges. Everything else is diagnostic.
C
Curious Coder
Facebook dating would be targeted to attract and retain younger audiences on the platform, who are leaving the platform for better alternatives.
The aim of the dating platform is to make people meet, which is an offline exercise and hence can't be measured on app. Hence we will need to find a close proxy for the same.
The close proxy shall be conversations, which are lasting a certain length and does have involvement of both the parties. Hence we can say the the number of users having more than "x" number of two way messages in "a" days. If this number is healthy and keeps improving (because FB dating is relatively new) then it is good to be called as a success metric.
Community Answers (2)
First, thing I’d like to clarify what success of Facebook dating means. It’s not competing with other platform like bumble and tinder. It is feature inside Facebook, so success of this has to be measured in two levels: what it does for the dating experience itself and what it does for Facebook as a platform. At feature level, I’d ignore matches as primary metric. Matches are easy to generate algorithmically and mean nothing without follow-through. The metric that matters is conversation quality: did a match lead to conversation, and did that conversation continue beyond first exchange? That is where genuine connection starts from. At platform level, the question is whether dating creates incremental value for Facebook. Are Dating users opening Facebook more often and engaging across other surfaces? If yes, Dating is strengthening the ecosystem. If dating users churn faster than non-dating users, the feature is failing regardless of what level of match numbers show. Trust dimension is also critical, Facebook has complicated privacy reputation, and Dating sits in a sensitive category. If the feature triggers privacy concern or reputation damage, it hurts the core platform even if the engagement is healthy. My north star metric is conversation continuation rate: the percentage of matches that result in conversation lasting more than three exchanges. Everything else is diagnostic.
Facebook dating would be targeted to attract and retain younger audiences on the platform, who are leaving the platform for better alternatives. The aim of the dating platform is to make people meet, which is an offline exercise and hence can't be measured on app. Hence we will need to find a close proxy for the same. The close proxy shall be conversations, which are lasting a certain length and does have involvement of both the parties. Hence we can say the the number of users having more than "x" number of two way messages in "a" days. If this number is healthy and keeps improving (because FB dating is relatively new) then it is good to be called as a success metric.