“With
Slingshot, we wanted to build something where everybody is a creator and nobody
is just a spectator. When everyone participates, there's less pressure, more
creativity and even the little things in life can turn into awesome shared”
Slingshot designer Joey
Flynn of Facebook's Creative Labs division commenting on their latest effort
against Snapchat dubbed Slingshot that was launched on Wednesday June 18th
2014
Like
Duh-uh, Big Blue Facebook and Snapchat
are at it again!
Facebook is like, going hard at Snapchat
yet again, Folks! And it’s not a revamp of Poke, their earlier failure as
chronicled in my blog
article entitled “Facebook
gets Mission Impossible serious with Poke as the Snapchat bringing “Sexting”
back”.
Slingshot
is the brainchild of designer Joey Flynn of Facebook's
Creative Labs division as per his own words in “Q&A
With Facebook's Joey Flynn: The Lead Slingshot Designer Wants To Change How 90%
Of Us Use Social Networks”, published JUN. 19, 2014, 5:58 PM by ALYSON
SHONTELL, Business Insider.
Facebook Slingshot is only available to
Americans on Apple iOS and Google Android (specifically JellyBean and KitKat).
Apparently as the rest of us are on a lower tier than Americans, we have to
wait awhile until the guinea-pig testing phase using Americans is over before
we have the option to try out this app.
Good
thing they got rid of Poke last week as described in “Facebook
Slingshot: Watch Out Snapchat”,
published 6/19/2014 10:00:45 AM by Kristin Burnham, Informationweek, as it wasn’t doing
very well. Doesn’t help much that Facebook’s attempts to purchase Snapchat thus
far have been rebuffed; at least now they have the option to make their own
version of this ephemeral fleeting messenger
Facebook's Creative
Labs Division – The Paper Man are the Force behind Slingshot
Developed
by Facebook's Creative Labs division the same dudes that brought you Facebook
Paper as described in my Geezam blog
article entitled “Pew
Research posits 3 in 10 get their News via Facebook as Paper set to go live”,
it works exactly like Snapchat. It better, otherwise no-body’s using it, for
sure man!
It
differs however in one aspect; the messages once sent can only be viewed if you
choose to send one of your own. No spectators here, as for participants who’ve
got the Facebook Slingshot App, it all has to come off! Also no Facebook
account is required to sign-up to Slingshot, an indication that Facebook’s
learned their lesson from Poke.
This
means no more gawking at a girl’s still pubescent doppelganger or otherwise
scantily clad nude photo or your man, whether you love him or not as noted in my
blog article
entitled “Snapchat
now racks up 350 million shares of self-deleting snaps per day - Milennial
Girl’s Litmus Test for Friends and future boyfriends”.
Instead,
on receiving a message it’s heavily pixilated and un-viewable. To clear away
the haze, you have to sling your friend a photo or video, after which the
picture you were sent is unlocked for your viewing pleasure….only to
self-destruct almost instantaneously. Annotations are another fun
differentiator from Snapchat. So too is the option to spam your friends with
pictures of you in the buff.
Thus
to see more, you gotta sling more. Something tells me this is really a recipe
for disaster……
Facebook Slingshot –
“Sexting” just got a boost…..if you’re interested
So
what about it? Does Slingshot sound like it’s on target? Or is it just hit and
miss, pun intended of course?
First
off is the slinging action. Not fond of it, as it’s only going to matter if you
have a friend that’s into the back-and-forth interactivity on IM (Instant
Messaging) as explained in “How
Popular Will Facebook's Slingshot App Become?”, published 6/20/2014 @
12:32PM, Forbes. Truth be told, unless
your friend of a similar mindset, you’ll be staring at a pixilated picture for
quite awhile before you get a response.
Then
there is the mass pictured sending feature, which is basically exploding spam.
This might not work out well, especially if your friend decided that keeping
that silly picture of you is a worth more than their friendship with you as
explained in my blog
article entitled “Snapchat
Leaked Facebook page shut down but Snapchat Leaked website still live -
Snapchat's Mission Impossible Ghost Protocol is really Much Ado About Nothing”.
At
least the drama won’t spread to Facebook, as to sign-up to Slingshot, a
Facebook account isn’t required. So it won’t reach onto Facebook that easily,
unless your friend has malicious intent and the perspicuity to bother himself
to upload the screenshot of your picture to Facebook in the first place.
Facebook Slingshot–
Friends Nearby + Firechat + Group Mini-Games = Original Design
Again,
as I’ve pointed out more times than not, it’s all about the friends that you
keep and what you choose to post, a decision with which my handy guide on
Social Media in my blog article entitled
“FaceBook
now gives Teenagers the power to make Public Posts - How making everything
Public on Facebook improves their Advertising Revenue” can assist you to
make.
With
so much of the design plagiarized from Snapchat and sporting a borrowed logo
from Taptalk as described in “Investors
Circle Taptalk After Facebook Clone Rumors”, published May 20, 2014 by Mike
Butcher, Techcrunch this isn’t going to
catch on much or stand out at all.
As
a standalone app, it’ll be some time before we can assess the success of
Slingshot among the selfie-obsessed Teenagers (ages 13 to 17) and Millennials
(ages 18 to 28). But straight off the
bat, I’d recommend it be merged into Friends Nearby as described in my blog article
entitled “Facebook
launches Nearby Friends feature - WhatsApp VoIP and Oculus Rift VR Wearable
Computing Takes flight as FB look towards the Future in the Year of the Horse”
so as to add a gaming–like elements to the mix.
Sending
messages in a new way means using a different communication medium, not cloning
another app!
If
Slingshot had Geo-Location threads in its design as well as a dash of Open
Garden’s FireChat Bluetooth powered P2P (Peer-to-Peer) Networking as described
in my blog
article entitled “Open
Garden's FireChat is a Viral Hit - Mesh Networking is Back as Apple’s
Multi-peer Connectivity Network reintroduces Napster-esque P2P Mesh Networks
for Millennials”, it could compete against Snapchat.
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