MSQRD.Me Acquired By Facebook After Releasing Android App
I simply can’t get enough of MSQRD. It’s an app that made me laugh and smile more than any other I’ve ever tried. I know that’s an overstatement, but it really is true. Aside from being hilarious, it’s absolutely technologically brilliant. The only thing this glorious app lacked (it didn’t lack a unique .ME domain ^^) was support for Android phones. That, fortunately, changed a few days ago, and now you can enjoy the wonderfulness of MSQRD regardless of your preferred platform.
What’s even more interesting is that MSQRD will have the full support of the biggest social network, Facebook, behind itself. How can we be so sure? Well, MSQRD.Me was acquired by Zuckerberg’s company the other day!
Even though we already showcased MSQRD last month, the release of the Android app and the acquisition by Facebook show that we need to revisit it. So, in short – MSQRD.Me (or Masquerade) is an app that uses sophisticated facial recognition technology, combined with just the right dose of magic, to bring you video selfies like you’ve never seen before. If you somehow missed it, you can now use videos as your Facebook profile pictures, and video selfies are slowly making their way into our lives.
Joker? Leo DiCaprio? Jimmy Kimmel? Be All Of Them – on Android
So, selfies are great, video selfies are even better, but video selfies that change your face to something completely different? Well there’s pure gold there, I tell you. Apple iPhone users can already choose from tens of faces they wish to “borrow”, just by aiming their phone camera at their face and letting the app do its magic. Faces range from Leonardo DiCaprio to Joker and Snoop Dogg, and all of them are equally hilarious.
Even Mark Zuckerberg wanted to be Iron Man:
https://www.facebook.com/zuck/videos/10102701352035661/
The great news for Android users like myself is that MSQRD.Me is finally available on Android! You can finally enjoy all of those faces and filters by yourself, and not just by stealing your friend’s phone so that you can take a photo of you with a monkey face instead of your own. It has its benefits. 🙂
One of the biggest challenges apps like MSQRD face is that their enormous wave of popularity doesn’t actually bring any money. We already mentioned that Snapchat stopped selling Lenses (we’ll get to those later) after just two months. MSWRD’s business model was well predicted by our own Ivan when he said that MSQRD will probably be acquired by someone. And that is precisely what happened the day before yesterday, as we mentioned in the introduction.
Facebook bought MSQRD for an undisclosed sum of money, saying that MSQRD has amazing tech in its hands, and Facebook has the audience to share that tech with. As Techcrunch confirmed, MSQRD.Me will continue life as a standalone product while the members of the team, Eugene Nevgen, Sergey Gonchar and Eugene Zatepyakin, will work out of Facebook’s London office.
We will soon also be seeing some of that tech on Facebook messenger, I’m sure, and I’m pretty excited about that. I’d like to see how the MSQRD concept fits in with the whole idea of Facebook, and if I can predict something, it’s that it will be pretty great.
Lens Flair
Now back to Snapchat. The fast-accelerating social network is definitely on the rise lately, and its rapid growth can, of course, be linked with its innovative way of making people connect. The aforementioned lenses, for example allow you to add an overlay to your photos or video selfies that can consist of practically anything you can think of – hats, drinks, animals, inanimate objects, everything. It’s a great way of adding just that special comedic touch to your images that your friends will certainly find very amusing.
But even though Snapchat can make you look goofy with their lenses, MSQRD.Me can make you look like a bear, AND let you add objects similar to lenses. So, it’s pretty much down to whatever suits you better, I guess. The thing that makes MSQRD.Me great, is that it lets you share the video selfies you make with everyone at almost any social media. Facebook? Yes. Instagram? Yes. Email? Of course yes. The beauty is that if you want to get goofy, you can get goofy on all fronts.
With Facebook behind it, MSQRD.Me can now truly take on Snapchat!
Congrats To The MSQRD.Me Tam
We are always extremely happy to see .ME projects make it big. It gives us that great kind of warmth, and we honestly believe MSQRD.Me is one of the best apps you can download today.
In the end, we all love new things (and apps). MSQRD.Me is one that actively makes you laugh and brings a dose of cheer in your life, and we can all agree that we can use that cheer from time to time, right? On Android, and with the support of Facebook – even!
