Facebook is reportedly building a new video-sharing service of its own to enable the company to directly compete with the immensely-popular Snapchat. Rumors indicate that company CEO and founder Mark Zuckerberg is personally overseeing the creation of the product and is aiming to build an 'ephemeral messaging app'. That kind of concept could well enable his company to take on Snapchat's dominance of the short video-sharing market.
According to the Financial Times, the finished app could be ready for release on the major smartphone platforms by the end of this month and is being developed under the name of 'Slingshot'. Although the title could change before it hits the app stores, Slingshot is an interesting name that could perhaps point towards Zuckerberg's ambitions - to 'slingshot' past Snapchat and gain the market lead. It also resonates with Snapchat and so is easy for people to associate themselves with.
Snapchat enables users to take a short video or photo and then send it to any other user. The service is unique in one important aspect: the sender of the message can choose how long the recipient can view it for from a duration of 1-10 seconds. Because of this, the service has grown to be incredibly popular - particularly with young people - who enjoy the freedom it inspires by knowing that the person they send the message to will not be able to view that content for longer than they specify. The service is not as secure as many believe, however. It has been hacked several times in the recent past and people regularly bypass the specified viewing duration for messages by simply taking screenshots of them.
Facebook is obviously very enthusiastic, however, about the service that Snapchat provides as this is the latest in a growing line of attempts by the company to encroach on Snapchat's popularity and success. In 2012 they built a video-sharing app similiar to Snapchat called 'Poke' but very quickly abandoned the product as it was universally regarded as having severe shortcomings. Even Mark Zuckerberg himself tried to disown it by saying it "was a joke" and rumors are now widely circulated that it was built in just 12 hours.
The company's efforts became more concentrated last year, though, when Facebook offered to buy Snapchat for $3 billion - an offer that was quickly declined. Now it looks as though the companies are going to end up going head-to-head in a fight for dominance of the short video-messaging market. The possibility of today's rumors being proved true is also increased as Facebook recently said they would be launching a series of simple but high-quality apps during 2014. A Snapchat rival would definitely fit that criteria.
Facebook certainly has a long way to go, however, before they can successfully topple the extensive reputation that Snapchat has built for themselves across the past three years. It will be an uphill struggle but with Facebook now also owning the popular instant messaging service WhatsApp, as well as their own Messenger, it is definitely possible if resources from all three are pulled together to make one ultra-efficient, simple and most-importantly effective product. Perhaps this is what Slingshot is intended to be.
Source: The Financial Times via The Verge | Image via iOSVlog
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