Facebook Bought Masquerade – A Face-Swapping App
Soon, you’ll see on your Facebook feed some face-swapping tricks as the social networking site just announced that it has acquired Masquerade, a face-swapping app.
The news wasn’t taken positively by some Facebook’s users. In fact, many of them are saying that the urgency to delete their accounts on said social networking site increased tenfold.
This decision of Facebook to purchase Masquerade is a clear indication that it wants to heat up the competition with Snapchat, which is known for its fun filters, masks and the other special effects that you can use to make your selfies more fun and entertaining
Capturing the Youth
By acquiring Masquerade, Facebook can capture the youth vote as it allows users to add filters, emojis, stickers and some text to their photos and videos.
Last year, Snapchat released animated effects for its selfies feature. This feature is known as lenses. The animated effects were made possible through Looksery, a facial modification program, of which Snapchat bought in 2015.
What is Masquerade?
This app allows you to record selfie video animations that will change the way you look. The effects can be sent to your friends on messaging apps and your other social networking accounts.
Face swap is one of the popular features of the program. It allows the user to trade looks with one another in photos. With this app, you can take selfies in celebrity masks.
This purchase emphasises the importance of flashy new features that can be used in a messaging app the same way that users can when they opt for Snapchat, WhatsApp and Instagram.
The purchase may make a significant revenue driver for Facebook. In fact, it’s eager to look into its TV advertising budgets. Users of this social networking site watch 100 million of video through Facebook.
In 2013, Snapchat received a buyout offer of $3 billion from Facebook. But the offer was apparently rejected. For many technical experts, the decision of Snapchat in refusing the offer was ideal as the app has the potential to build something bigger.
The report did not say how much Facebook paid for acquiring Masquerade. The technology of the newly acquired app will soon be incorporated in Facebook. However, just like WhatsApp, Masquerade will continue to operate and run independently.
In an announcement made by the app:
Now, we’re excited to join forces with Facebook and bring the technology to even more people. Within Facebook, we’re going to be able to reach people at a scale like never before. For starters, we’ll be able to bring our technology to Facebook’s audience of nearly 1.6 billion people. This is a scale of audience we never imagined was possible. While we will be partnering with Facebook to integrate our technology, the app will stay up and running so you’ll continue to record fun selfies and keep using the product. You can also expect us to keep adding fun features!
What do you think of this acquisition? Will Facebook succeed in competing against Snapchat or will the latter prevail?
