Facebook snaps at Snapchat with aquisition of face-swapping app maker Masquerade

By Rashi Varshney On Mar 14, 2016

Before now, Facebook relied heavily on a team of on-call engineers to parse through real-time data about national disasters and incidents such as terrorist attacks coming in from third-party partners. Ultimately, these staffers would serve up manual Safety Check prompts encouraging people to use the feature. Starting this week, Facebook is testing a Safety Check invite tool that allows people in affected areas to ask friends and family members to check in and mark themselves as “safe.”

While Snapchat has features such as bulging eyes, Masquerade allows users to add special effects including animal masks and snow to their photos and video. Masquerade, backed by Yuri Gurski and Gagarin Capital, said founders Eugene Nevgen, Sergey Gonchar and Eugene Zatepyakin will join Facebook. The app will continue as a standalone product

Facebook Inc is acquiring Masquerade Technologies Inc, creator of the popular face-swapping app MSQRD, as part of efforts by the world’s largest social network operator to build its video services. The deal comes nearly three years after the Wall Street Journal reported that photo and video messaging app Snapchat had rejected an offer from Facebook.

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Masquerade, which announced the deal on its website, did not disclose financial details. he deal is more a piece of Facebook’s bigger effort to innovate into video, Monness, Crespi, Hardt, & Co Inc analyst James Cakmak said. It is unlikely that Facebook would use Masquerade to significantly draw away Snapchat users, he said.

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