The acquisition was , but is now official. According to , Facebook will spend around $100 million on the purchase--roughly one tenth of what the company plans to .
Face.com's technology can identify Facebook users' faces in photos or live video. The company already offers a Facebook app called , which can identify faces and suggest photo tags, and also offers a standalone iPhone app called that can identify friends in real time and adapt image filters to people's faces. Face.com also so other app developers can use the company's technology.
With the acquisition, Facebook will bring the Face.com team in house. The start-up says it plans to keep supporting third-party developers with its APIs.
Although Facebook and Face.com haven't said exactly what they'll do together, a blog post by Face.com hints at future plans (emphasis is mine): "We love building products, and like our friends at Facebook, we think that mobile is a critical part of people's lives as they both create and consume content, and share content with their social graph," .
Considering Facebook's pending Instagram acquisition and the launch of its own Facebook Camera app, it's clear that Facebook is turning a lot more attention to mobile photo-sharing. (Perhaps the sudden rise of Instagram gave Facebook a kick in the pants.) With Face.com in-house, Facebook will be able to help users tag photos faster on their mobile devices--provided they can get over the .
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