Facebook takes shot at Snapchat with Slingshot
SAN FRANCISCO — Facebook hopes its new Slingshot app will get people talking.
The widely anticipated mobile app is being released today in the U.S. for iPhones and Android phones.
It's part of Mark Zuckerberg's ambitious strategy to create a new constellation of mobile apps to compete in the smartphone era. The goal: to be at the center of every social interaction, whether that interaction takes place on Facebook or not.
In the case of Slingshot, over time Facebook wants to siphon some of the growing popularity of Snapchat and appeal to teens who are glued to their phones.
Slingshot lets you instantly share what you are doing with a group of friends. First you shoot a photo, short video or a selfie, add some text or an emoticom or draw on it, then "sling" it to a friend or friends.
The catch: Friends can't see the image or video until they send one of their own back to you. Once you receive a shot, you can reply or swipe the image and it disappears.
Having seen messaging services win away the attention of some younger users, Facebook is doubling down on mobile apps, either through acquisitions or technologies built inside the company. So far, the strategy has had mixed results.
Snapchat, which lets you send photos and videos to your friends that disappear in seconds, rebuffed Facebook's $3 billion takeover offer last year. But in a blockbuster deal announced earlier this year, Facebook is buying WhatsApp, another popular messaging app with more than 500 million users, for $19 billion.
Facebook's own apps have yet to make a big splash. Despite the popularity of its Messenger app, Poke, Facebook's first attempt to compete with Snapchat, never caught on and was removed from the App Store.
Slingshot is the second app from Creative Labs, a new initiative inside Facebook to encourage employees to take creative risks and speed up innovation at the giant social network.
Small teams at Creative Labs experiment with apps that stand alone from Facebook.
A news reader called Paper was the first app to come out of Creative Labs. It has not gained a big following. Facebook has not said how many people have downloaded Paper but says users read an average of 80 stories a day.
More apps are in the works. Facebook has said it plans to release several apps from Creative Labs this year.
The Facebook employees behind Slingshot say it will operate just like a startup, just inside a massive, multibillion-dollar company. You sign up for Slingshot with your phone number and you do not need a Facebook account.
With Slingshot, Facebook is betting it can pull off the "Slingshot" maneuver in auto racing in which a drafting car accelerates past the car in front of it by taking advantage of reserve power. In this case, that reserve is powered by the deep pockets and household brand of Facebook.
Thanks to the Facebook name, Slingshot got some early attention last week when Facebook accidentally released the app in some countries.
Product designer Joey Flynn says he came up with the idea for Slingshot as an alternative to using text messaging to stay in touch with his two brothers who live in LA.
He and Rocky Smith, the engineering lead, and Will Ruben, the product manager, began working on the idea during a Facebook hackathon in December. They have been working full time on Slingshot since January and now have a 10-person team.
They think Slingshot will catch on because it encourages people to share with one another and to be creative, rather than just being passive spectators. But they concede it will likely take time to grow an audience.
"You are sharing little windows into your lives back and forth," Ruben said. "It ends up becoming an awesome shared experience."