Facebook is rumored to be in talks to purchase facial recognition tech startup Face.com, according to a report from Israeli business publication Calcalist (Google Translate).
Unlike the social giant’s rumored push into smartphone device making with a Facebook-branded phone, spending money on buying a facial recognition actually makes lots of sense. Facebook is one of the biggest photo sites on the planet, and the vast majority of those photos contain pictures of friends, family, and parties — all with lots of faces. Being able to easily identify those faces would easily translate into a higher traffic return, and hopefully higher advertising revenue. There’s also the fact that Facebook would be gaining a pretty wonderful domain name that encompasses half of the social network’s own name.
Face.com has continued to show itself innovative. It recently started guessing your age.
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The deal could be worth an estimated $80 million to $100 million, according to Newsgeek. However, The Next Web’s Robin Wauters points out that at this point there is zero confirmation from either side, and Face.com chief executive Gil Hirsch said there is “nothing new to share.”
Yet, to add some credibility to the notion that this acquisition will go through, Facebook did recently just purchase ultra popular photo filter startup Instagram for a tidy sum of money. And with its investors worried that Facebook’s mobile strategy is lacking, the company is also rumored to be working on its own smartphone and buying mobile browser company Opera — both of which would be very useful when used in conjunction with facial recognition technology.
Founded in 2007, the Israeli-based startup has previously raised $5.3 million in funding to date.
Image via Face.com
