Zuckerberg Dons Digital Iron Man Mask To Announce Facebook’s Acquisition Of Face-Swapping MSQRD App

Ah, to be the billionaire co-founder of the world's most popular social networking site. That's the position Mark Zuckerberg finds himself in, and one thing is for sure, he's enjoying life. He's also spreading the fun to Facebook users in unique ways, which would explain why he wore a virtual Iron Man mask to announce the acquisition of Masquerade Technologies, makers of the popular face swapping MSQRD app.

That's a thing now, if you weren't aware. Filters have always been popular thanks to apps like Instagram, and if you're a Snapchat user, you've probably seen the frightening result of two people swapping faces. Heck, I saw a photo of a family friend swap his face with his feline companion, which was weird to say the least.

Masquerade's app lets you do that as well. It also lets you take selfies in celebrity masks and apply live face effects like big and bulging eyeballs or, in Zuckerberg's case, an Iron Man mask overlay that opens and shuts. It's the top app in Apple's App Store in several countries at the moment, and it now belongs to Facebook.


"Video communication is exploding. At Masquerade, we’ve worked hard to make video more fun and engaging by creating filters that enhance and alter your appearance. Now, we’re excited to join forces with Facebook and bring the technology to even more people," Masquerade Technologies said. "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."

The immediate task is to integrate Masquerade's app into Facebook. However, Masquerade promises to keep the standalone app up and running, as well as to keep adding new features. Whether or not will be the case long term remains to be seen, but for now, the app isn't going anywhere.