Facebook May Offer Dating Options with Graph Search

Facebook recently launched a new tool called "Graph Search" as a replacement for its current Search functionality which only searches people, pages, groups and some posts. This new search feature will let anyone find people and maybe connect with them by searching through their profile information and the interests they have added on Facebook. As usual, Facebook is covering their behind, only those things a user has left as public will be returned in the search results.

When they announced the Facebook Graph Search, the focus was on how Graph search will help Facebook users in getting recommendations from your friends and friends of friends when you are looking for say a doctor, a plumber or electrician, a particular product, book TV show. The tool is in beta now and anyone can try it free, here.

When it goes live though, I won't be surprised if Facebook users capitalize on the search graph to find people for dating or stalking. Think of search terms that fit a specific dating profile, such as "Friends of friends who are single" "Single men 30 - 35 who live in New York," or "women under 30 in Lagos." Hmmm...

Manti Te'o and the Internet Girlfriend that Never Was

Or how to avoid being the victim of an internet love scam. Manti Te'o is an Americam college football star who allegedly was a victim of an internet love scam. In US parlance, it is called Catfish - the title of a 2010 movie that brought a similar incident of online dating trickery to the big screen, and a 2012 MTV show of the same name.

This is a situation whereby one enters a long-term relationship with someone they meet online, without ever meeting them in real life. Only as it turns out, their lover is made up, or not who they say they are. This is what happened to Manti Te'o, and in his case, he dated a lady, who then later 'died'. There is more to the story, which is why the football player is making the news, but I want to look at the Catfish angle.

As most of you will know, I met Atala on the internet, we were in the UK, but in the later part, he was in the US. For over a year, we both participated in an online community, gradually getting to know each other, before we began to exchange private and personal messages. When we did decide to pursue a romantic relationship, one thing I insisted on was that we had to meet before anyone really started catching deep feelings.