Facebook to launch Snapchat rival ‘Slingshot’: Reports
Facebook is making another effort to compete with Snapchat with its new messaging app, Slingshot.
With increased focus on mobile platform, especially the messaging segment, Facebook is reportedly planning to launch a video-chatting application called Slingshot. According to reports, the new app will be very similar to popular Snapchat and will be released by this month.
Reports further say Facebook chief Mark Zuckerberg is overseeing the project after the company failed to acquire Snapchat. The company has been working on the app for months. The app is said to come with a simple UI that will make sending self-destructing video messages even easier.
Facebook recently killed its standalone Poke app on Apple app store. It may be recalled Facebook’s Poke app was supposed to compete with Snapchat as it offered up to 10 second of photo and video messages. However, Poke couldn’t deliver the kind of results Facebook might have expected.
The social networking giant has increased its focus on mobile messaging as it took over the popular WhatsApp. “WhatsApp is on a path to connect 1 billion people. The services that reach that milestone are all incredibly valuable. I’ve known Jan for a long time and I’m excited to partner with him and his team to make the world more open and connected,” Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook founder and CEO had said.
Giving a stiff competition to Snapchat is not the only challenge Facebook’s new service will be facing. Maintaining anonymity will one of the main issues for Facebook, considering Snapchat lets users sign up with minimum of information and only shows username to others on the service. Facebook, on the other hand, has been long criticised for poor privacy policies. As expected, Slingshot will be tied with Facebook profile, which a lot of people might not prefer.
Source: Slashgear