We all know that Facebook is trying to make Slingshot more popular than Snapchat, which is the most popular chat and messaging app used by millions of people everywhere. That’s why Facebook has announced the new and improved Slingshot app.
Slingshot allows its users to send direct and time-limited images and messages, this is an old features. One of the new features lets the Slingshot users view a 24 hour feed of their friends’ posts. Facebook calls these posts “Slings”. Snapchat calls theirs “Stories”.
The new Slingshot feature is a bit different than Snapchat’s. The user doesn’t need to select a particular friend and see the posts. All the recent friends’ posts are put together in a grid and there is an option that allows you to discover and follow other people outside the contacts book.
One of the most unusual features, especially since Facebook advertises Slingshot as being an app for ephemeral moments, is that it allows you to review the posts from yesterday and share them on Facebook, Instagram and Twitter.
The team behind the new and improved Slingshot app has explained features saying:
“With Slingshot we originally set out to create a place where you could share real, raw moments with your friends. Since we released the first version we have been listening to all of the great feedback from our community and have been cranking away at a big update.”
Facebook launched Slingshot in June and tried to advertise it as a different fast messaging apps that already existed on the market. Slingshot differentiated itself from the others by asking the users to reply with a photo if they wanted to see a friend’s post. When it was launched, one of Slingshot’s creators, Will Ruben, explained that they introduced this feature because the Slingshot app was one where everyone creates and no one just stands and only does the watching.
After being deeply disliked by most of Slingshot’s users, the feature asking to reply in order to unlock the post was taken out.
Here’s what the team of creators had to say about the new and improved Slingshot app:
“We understand that improving a product isn’t only about what you add, but about what you remove, so we made a simpler, cleaner, more fun Slingshot.”