Slingshot, Facebook’s Snapchat Competitor, Is Now Officially a Snapchat Clone
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Poke, Facebook’s failed first attempt at developing a Snapchat competitor, was essentially a direct rip-off of the service. Slingshot, its sophomore effort that launched in June, had one distinguishing feature that saved it from a similar clone status: In order for users to open a message on the service, they had to first “sling” (i.e. return) a message of their own back to the sender.
Ultimately, the feature was built to encourage engagement and discourage lurking. “With Slingshot, we wanted to build something where everybody is a creator and nobody is just a spectator,” Facebook said in a announcing the launch.
As we wrote then, Facebook was likely underestimating social media users’ collective desire to consume content versus create it. Forcing individuals to respond to a message before opening it makes for a disjointed, strangely high-pressure messaging experience.
Related: Facebook Launches Slingshot, Its Snapchat Competitor
So it’s not all that surprising that just over two months after Slingshot’s launch, Facebook has killed this reciprocity feature.
, when users send a photo or video in response to one from a friend, they’ll receive a message that reads “Sling a shot to see a shot? Not necessarily! After shooting a photo or video, now you can choose whether to sling it as a locked or unlocked shot.”
Allowing users to freely lurk may help the service gain traction, but it also completely negates Facebook’s claim that Slingshot is not a Snapchat clone
It totally is now. To be fair, it’s far from the only one — earlier this summer Instagram launched Bolt, its own Snapchat rip-off.
Related: This Is the 23-Year-Old Â鶹Éç Who Just Turned Down $3 Billion From Facebook
Poke, Facebook’s failed first attempt at developing a Snapchat competitor, was essentially a direct rip-off of the service. Slingshot, its sophomore effort that launched in June, had one distinguishing feature that saved it from a similar clone status: In order for users to open a message on the service, they had to first “sling” (i.e. return) a message of their own back to the sender.
Ultimately, the feature was built to encourage engagement and discourage lurking. “With Slingshot, we wanted to build something where everybody is a creator and nobody is just a spectator,” Facebook said in a announcing the launch.
As we wrote then, Facebook was likely underestimating social media users’ collective desire to consume content versus create it. Forcing individuals to respond to a message before opening it makes for a disjointed, strangely high-pressure messaging experience.
