Facebook Releases New Slingshot Messaging App

Facebook accidentally released and then pulled its long-rumored Snapchat competitor recently, but the social media giant has recovered and has now properly unveiled Slingshot, a stand-alone app for the sharing of photos and short videos with friends.

Released a week ago for iPhones and Android phones, the idea behind Slingshot is to allow users to instantly share “everyday moments” with a group of friends.  Slingshot allows users to shoot a photo, short video or selfie and subsequently add text or a drawing to it before they “sling” it to either a large group or a small number of people.  One novel aspect of the app is that the recipient can’t see the image or video until they send one back.  Once a user receives a shot, they can reply or swipe the image and it will disappear.

Considering the high level of competition in the messaging app space, the social media giant is doing its best to distinguish Slingshot from Snapchat.  One key difference, explains Facebook, is that Slingshot is for one-to-many sharing as opposed to one-to-one interaction with Snapchat.  “We’ve enjoyed using Snapchat to send each other ephemeral messages and expect there to be a variety of apps that explore this new way of sharing.  With Slingshot, we saw an opportunity to create something new and different: a space where you can share everyday moments with lots of people at once,” Facebook wrote in a recent blog post.

Slingshot fits in perfectly with Facebook’s broader strategy to develop a series of single-purpose apps that match the manner in which people consume content on smartphones.  In addition to the need for Facebook to make Slingshot stand out from its external competitors such as Snapchat and Taptalk, the company will also need to find a niche for the app within its growing number of messaging apps, including Facebook Messenger, Instagram and WhatsApp.  Facebook attempted to purchase Snapchat for $3 billion last year, but the offer was refused.

Eytan Oren, director of partnerships at IPG Media Labs, believes that Facebook is acting on the important idea that messaging apps are predicted to have a larger audience than traditional social networks by the end of this year.  “The real story is how fast Facebook is trying to win this messaging app game,” said Oren.

Facebook is not including any advertising on Slingshot at this point, just as they have done with the initial launch of other apps, but that won’t necessarily stop brands from attempting to market through the app as they’ve done in Snapchat and many other messaging apps.  Facebook finally rolled out paid advertising on Instagram last year, although the social media giant has promised to keep WhatsApp ad-free for the foreseeable future.

“Facebook is always keeping brands in mind, and I’m hopeful there will be opportunities on all of their messaging platforms in the next few years,” said Oren, who recently co-authored an IPG report on messaging apps.