{"id":198078,"date":"2016-03-11T08:06:07","date_gmt":"2016-03-11T08:06:07","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/4cd.e16.myftpupload.com\/?p=198078"},"modified":"2016-03-11T08:06:07","modified_gmt":"2016-03-11T08:06:07","slug":"facebook-buys-selfie-face-swap-app-masquerade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/?p=198078","title":{"rendered":"Facebook buys selfie face-swap app Masquerade"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"story-body__introduction\">Facebook has bought photo-editing app Masquerade, which lets people change their appearance in real-time.<\/p>\n<p>The app can transform faces &#8211; often in a cartoon-like fashion &#8211; and overlay make-up, animal features or accessories on live video.<\/p>\n<p>Masquerade&#8217;s filters have been compared to those in rival Snapchat, which Facebook tried to buy in 2013.<\/p>\n<p>One expert said Facebook was responding to competition from Snapchat, which streams millions of videos daily.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"media-landscape has-caption full-width\"><span class=\"image-and-copyright-container\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"responsive-image__img js-image-replace\" src=\"http:\/\/ichef.bbci.co.uk\/news\/624\/cpsprodpb\/15192\/production\/_88681468_masq.jpg\" alt=\"Masquerade app\" width=\"624\" height=\"351\" \/><\/span><\/figure>\n<p>Face-changing apps gained popularity after instant messaging app Snapchat added live filters called lenses in 2015.<\/p>\n<p>The face-swap filter, which switches two people&#8217;s faces with often alarming results, has become a particular favourite on social media.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I think Facebook has realised Snapchat has something it doesn&#8217;t,&#8221; said David Wilkinson, managing partner at digital consultancy Soho Strategy.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;A lot of people share filtered selfie videos, so I think we can expect to see this integrated into Facebook&#8217;s Messenger platform.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Snapchat has its own USP as an ephemeral messaging platform, but for the novelty factor people might just use Facebook&#8217;s built-in filters.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>In 2013, Facebook tried to take over Snapchat for $3bn, but the instant messaging firm rejected the offer, according to the Wall Street Journal.<\/p>\n<p>Facebook has not disclosed how much it has paid for Belarus-based Masquerade, but said it would keep the app running as a standalone program, as well as integrating features with its social network.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Masquerade has great technology to help us bring even more creative tools to Facebook, and help extend this work to video,&#8221; the company said in a statement.<\/p>\n<p>&#8211;<\/p>\n<p>Source: BBC<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Facebook has bought photo-editing app Masquerade, which lets people change their appearance in real-time. The app can transform faces &#8211; often in a cartoon-like fashion &#8211; and overlay make-up, animal features or accessories on live video. Masquerade&#8217;s filters have been compared to those in rival Snapchat, which Facebook tried to buy in 2013. One expert [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":14,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"jnews-multi-image_gallery":[],"jnews_single_post":[],"jnews_primary_category":[],"jnews_social_meta":[],"jnews_override_counter":[],"footnotes":""},"categories":[106],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-198078","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-technology"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198078","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/14"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=198078"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/198078\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=198078"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=198078"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/citifmonline.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=198078"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}