Facebook announces new dating service 'for serious relationships, not hookups'

One is the loneliest number, which is probably why Facebook is taking steps to connect the people on its network who aren't in a relationship.

At it's annual F8 developer conference Tuesday, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced that his company will soon add a dating service to the main app.

"This is going to be for building real long-term relationships, not hookups," Zuckerberg said during the announcement.

Zuckerberg did not elaborate much on what the feature will look like or how it will work, but Facebook posted more details shortly after on its company blog:

DatingWe’re building a feature for dating and relationships within the Facebook app. People already use Facebook to meet new people, and we want to make that experience better. People will be able to create a dating profile that is separate from their Facebook profile — and potential matches will be recommended based on dating preferences, things in common, and mutual friends. They’ll have the option to discover others with similar interests through their Groups or Events. However, what people do within the dating feature will not be shown to their friends. We’ll share more information when this begins testing later this year.

It should be no surprise why Facebook wants to get into the online dating industry. A recent Pew study found that 15 percent of American adults have used online dating sites or apps in their lifetime, and another recent estimate suggests that the online dating industry generates approximately $3 billion in revenue every year.

Plus, let's not forget that Facebook has long been intertwined with people's romantic lives. The social network's "relationship status" became such a ubiquitous part of life for many young people that they started using lexicon directly from the feature.

The phrase "It's complicated," which was an option available to describe your relationships on Facebook, became an ironic phrase used to describe rocky dating lives of people in their teens and early twenties.

So, should you go ahead and delete your Bumble and Tinder accounts? Not so fast. The new dating service has not yet rolled out on Facebook, so you won't be able to connect with anyone else just yet. Plus, you should really consider if you want Facebook to have this type of intimate detail about your life, especially after the recent data scandal that ensnared millions of Facebook users. Your move, singles.