Facebook's annual F8 conference is currently underway in San Jose, California, which means the social media platform has a number of announcements to make for its upcoming plans. One of the more intriguing are set of features to enable dating via Facebook.

The move comes 14 years after the social media site first debuted, but makes a lot of sense, especially as one of Facebook's more divisive aspects has been the ability to note whether a user is either in a relationship or single. Adding a layer of dating features to the mix feels like a natural extension of this.

The announcement could also spell bad news for established dating apps and websites like Tinder and OKCupid, with The Verge reporting that the pair's holding company stock fell more than 17% since Facebook's F8 2018 keynote address stating the upcoming features.

Built around creating conversations and long lasting relationships, and not "just hook-ups", according to Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg, the dating features will tap into the estimated 2.2 billion monthly active users that the platform has at its disposal.

The features are set to rollout in a testing phase later this year, with a fully fledged version arriving thereafter.