Single, 35, living in Bogota, she was tired of the way some men on Tinder made inappropriate advances and how the app kept asking her to upgrade to its premium services, Tinder Plus and Tinder Gold.

So she created a Facebook Dating profile and became an early adopter of a service that is now rolling out in other countries and could, given Facebook’s huge number of users, transform online dating.

“I like it,” she said, especially since it is contained within the Facebook app on her phone.T get the impression people spend more time on it than they do on Tinder, simply because they’re on Facebook anyway and dip into the dating service now and then, but on Tinder you have to open a separate app.

She added that while she was in contact with two or three men, she had not yet been on a date.”There is a bit of everything on there.I have friends who use it for hookups but you can also look for friendship or more long-term relationships”,she said.

Facebook’s decision to launch its dating product in Colombia was puzzling for some.Internet penetration and mobile phone ownership are lower here than in North America or Western Europe.

But with a relatively young population of nearly 50m and several big urban centres  Bogotá, Medellín, Cali and Barranquilla all boast more than lm inhabitants 一 Colombia was big enough to be a good testing ground but not so big that it would cause a stir if the service was a flop.

The company describes Facebook Dating as “a dedicated space within the Facebook app”.It is separate from your main profile and news feed, so your dating history remains private from your friends, who are also ruled out as potential matches.

At first glance it resembles other dating programs.Users set up profiles, add photos and write a bit about themselves.They set an age range and a distance range for the people they wish to meet.It is possible to opt for people with children or not.

But instead of swiping left or right, users tap on a profile photo to reveal a profile and can then choose either “pass” or “interested”.Tapping on “interested” obliges a user to leave a greeting, even if it is just a quick “hola!” before moving on to view other profiles.

Facebook said it wanted to get away from the quick “yes/no” model and give users a more considered service.The program suggests dates based on your Facebook behaviour and interests, but users can also use Facebook’s Events and Groups to find a match.

For example, if Erika signs up to go to a salsa concert in Facebook Events, she can activate it in Facebook Dating, which will then put her in touch with people going to the same concert.

Three months after it launched, Facebook is reticent about how many people are using the service, but said it has received “lots of useful feedback” that was helpful as it rolled the service out in Canada and Thailand in November.

“People there are highly social and tech savvy, with more than 24m people in Canada and more than 51m people in Thailand on Facebook every month,” Facebook said.

As it launched in its second and third countries, it refined the service.There is now a “Second Look” option that allows users to review people they rejected first time round and a “Pause” option that temporarily stops dating suggestions without a profile being deleted altogether.