Facebook buys facial recognition firm Face.com

Social networking giant Facebook has acquired Israeli facial recognition firm Face.com for an undisclosed amount in a bid to strengthen its photo-sharing platform.

Face.com’s software is used for facial recognition on photos loaded on its websites and through mobile applications.

“Facebook has acquired Face.com,” Face.com Founder Gil Hirsh has said on his blog.

The announcement comes about two months after Facebook shelled out $1 billion for photo-sharing service firm Instagram.

Although financial details of the deals were not disclosed, media reports have pegged the transaction in the range of $60 million to $100 million.

Announcing the deal, Mr. Hirsh said, “Facebook is a part of your life every single day. We keep up with our friends and family, share interesting (or mundane) experiences from our daily lives, and perhaps most importantly for us, we share a lot of photos.”

“...By working with Facebook directly, and joining their team, we’ll have more opportunities to build amazing products that will be employed by consumers — that’s all we’ve ever wanted to do,” he added.

Face.com’s apps scan billions of photos monthly, and have helped tag hundreds of millions of faces. It helps people to tag their own photos quickly and easily, and discover photos of themselves and their friends that they never knew existed.

The two recent acquisitions by Facebook, which has over 900 million users across the world, suggest that the social networking firm is taking huge interest in strengthening its photo-sharing platform.