According to a Wall Street Journal repor, t mobile messaging startup Snapchat rejected an acquisition offer from Facebook Inc. This could have valued the company at $3 billion or more.

Reports say, Facebook representatives approached Snapchat recently to discuss the all-cash deal. This would have been Facebook's largest acquisition ever.

Teenagers in recent time have been known to appreciate Snapchat, which allows consumers to send smartphone photos which automatically disappear after a few seconds.

Recently Snapchat introduced a "SnapKidz" version of its application for Apple mobile devices that lets children younger than 13 years old take or draw pictures, add captions, and save the images but not share them. This application was designed keeping in mind the bounds of laws which restricts information that can be collected about or from children.

Facebook's interest in Snapchat  surfaced a couple of weeks after Facebook, the world's No. 1 Internet social network, acknowledged that it was noticing a decline in daily use by young teenagers in the U. S. It said overall use by teenagers was stable though.

Shares of Facebook were up 3.1 percent at $48.05 in afternoon trading on Wednesday.