Tech giant Facebook has announced its decision to acquire Masquerade Technologies - the company that developed the popular face swapping app MSQRD. Facebook said that the decision is part of the company's plan to upgrade its social network platform by incorporating its own video services.

The deal, which took place on March 9, comes nearly three years after the popular photo and video messaging app Snapchat rejected an offer from Facebook. Both Masquerade and Facebook confirmed the deal on their respective websites, but did not disclose the financial details of their agreement.

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Facebook founder and CEO Mark Zuckerberg confirmed the deal by posting a video using the Iron Man filter on his Facebook page welcoming the Masquerade team to the company.

Market analysts speculate that the deal to acquire Masquerade is part of a bigger Facebook plan to delve into the video sharing platform as well as create its own video sharing service. Some experts believe that Facebook is only responding to growing competition from Snapchat, which statistics reveal is streaming millions of hours of videos on a daily basis.

Facebook said that although it has acquired a majority stake in Masquerade, the MSQRD app will remain a free and standalone app.

"I think Facebook has realized Snapchat has something it doesn't. A lot of people shared filtered selfie videos, so I think we can expect to see this integrated into Facebook's Messenger platform," Soho Strategy managing partner David Wilkinson told the BBC.

Face-changing apps became one of the top trends in the past year after they reached mainstream consciousness when instant messaging platform Snapchat released its live filters called lenses. It is also important to note that Facebook already tried to acquire Snapchat back in 2013 for a record breaking $3 billion deal, but the latter refused the offer.

TagsFacebook, snapchat, Facebook App, Masquerade, MSQRD, Facebook MSQRD, MSQRD news