Facebook Relaunching Its Snapchat Copy 'Slingshot', Getting Rid Of 'Send-to-receive' Feature
Around six months after launching Slingshot - Facebook's answer to Snapchat - the app is getting a complete overhaul. According to Facebook Creative Labs, the new design is much more "cleaner", focused and aimed at "frictionless sharing."
"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," read the Slingshot blog post, announcing the update.
The update is ditching the "send-to-receive" feature - to see a message you had to send one. Instead sent messages will appear in the timeline and the recipient can react privately.
The new update will also allow you to share fullscreen photos and lopping videos with just two taps. Users also get five photo filters, ability to draw on their photos and add captions.
Images still expire in 24 hours or after a friend has viewed it. With the new update you can follow interesting people on the service apart from following just friends. Turning on instant notifications would notify you instantly whenever they sling a shot.
Slingshot's download rank in the U.S. has been gradually dipping since its launch on iOS and Android - at positions 601 and 460 respectively. It'll be interesting to see if new updates lure more users to the service even after losing some momentum after their initial launch.
