12 ms·

Facebook Slingshot – A new way to share photos and videos

142 points by jeremylevy 12y ago

0xeeeeeeee 12y ago
One interesting thing I've noticed is facebook has been making a lot of new apps and widgets. Messenger, Paper, Slingshot. Seems to me that they are trying to increase engagement with the "new" factor. I think it's pretty smart.
- merkury7 12y ago
  Is there actually a significant user base for them though? I know Messenger was pretty much forced onto users, but other than that I don't know anyone who uses Paper, nor do I think any of my friends will start using Slingshot - especially when there are well established alternatives such as Snapchat. I'm doubtful many of them have even heard of these new apps, and this is coming from someone relatively young (20 y/o).
theg2 12y ago
The catch is a pretty big deal, and by deal I mean a deal breaker for me. Why do I have to share something back with someone in order to see what they've shared back at me? I understand it's great for engagement but who would use this over Snapchat or Instagram.
- ihsw 12y ago
  The concept kind of reminds me of Facebook poke wars, which are mildly entertaining in and of itself.
  - Kiro 12y ago
    I didn't realize it when watching the promo video but you're actually spot on.
- joelrunyon 12y ago
  I had the same question. That doesn't even remotely mirror how an actual conversation works.
  - bronson 12y ago
    It mirrors how a flamewar works.
- gdilla 12y ago
  It's not really sharing though. It's teasing or playing, much more like Snapchat. You wouldn't use this to share things. It would be too annoying.
- alaiacano 12y ago
  It's called "pic for pic" and I hear the kids are really into it.
  - alttab 12y ago
    Its definitely because they are taking naked pictures of themselves.
- furyofantares 12y ago
  It's a game, or at least, it's playful.
- interg12 12y ago
  I like the idea. It could shake up the whole lurker pool of users or fail miserably. Wouldn't it be interesting to have a community of users that are 100% engaged?
prezjordan 12y ago
I see the "catch" as a never-ending chain, and the conversations will end quite awkwardly.
- sb23 12y ago
  That's a good point. You can't say "ok, see you there" or finish your conversation in any normal way without the other person sending yet another picture. One person will always end up with an unseen picture.
darrelld 12y ago
Seems like they're trying to create more interaction and it sounds like it would be fun...for the first couple of times. Who really wants to go out of their way to make a new video or photo to see something? We've all become accustomed to the instant gratification that the internet offers, why would we suddenly opt in for a slower experience? Or it will turn into people sharing the same generic useless video / picture over and over just to see a video a friend sent, but then at that point why use this product at all? But maybe I'm wrong and it will take the preteen / teen world by storm.
- alaoiigha 12y ago
  I'm actually excited, but only to use this with my GF and I. We do something similar with Hangouts, but this seems more fun due to the video support primarily. I have yet to find out if the videos are temporary (i hope so)
  - alttab 12y ago
    Just like Snapchat's pictures were temporary?
- eertami 12y ago
  The audience for this app are already using Snapchat, and Slingshot offers no value above what Snapchat already offers - I don't see anyone switching.
orasis 12y ago
I'm feeling old since I seem to have an innate aversion to vertical photos or video.
Kopion 12y ago
From the Tech Crunch article [0]: "Over the next six months, they set out to build an app where “there’s way less pressure to create because everyone is creating”, Reuben says." I have never felt pressure to "create". Has anyone outside of the SV/SF bubble felt pressure to create? [0]: http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/17/facebook-slingshot/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/17/facebook-slingshot/
- k-mcgrady 12y ago
  >> ""Over the next six months, they set out to build an app where “there’s way less pressure to create because everyone is creating”" WHAT? How do they go from that to: "We should force people to create and send images, even if they don't want to, just so they can see what they've been send!"
  - SifJar 12y ago
    This quote is best understood from within the context of the article. At my first glance, I thought the same as you, then I read the article. Basically, they're not saying that people shouldn't feel pressure to reciprocate (obviously), they're saying that people needn't feel pressure when "creating" something, because everyone else is "creating" stuff too, so most of it won't be excellent quality. They're not trying to discourage creation, but to make it that it's not intimidating to create, because of the vast amount of crappy content there will be (so yours won't stand out as particularly bad). That's my understanding of it from a (skim) read of the TechCrunch article linked.
    - k-mcgrady 12y ago
      Thanks for the context. I read a different article (NYT one) but was commenting here as it was the top voted one at the time on HN.
      - alttab 12y ago
        I hate Facebook status update anxiety. Some days I never leave my house.
dcpdx 12y ago
I'm not sure I understand the allure of this; perhaps I'm missing something. So I have to send a video/photo in response to someone who sent me one, in order to see what they sent? It seems like there would be a massive disparity in interesting activities between two parties at any given time to make this concept work. If one of my buddies is having a riot at Coachella and sends me a crazy festival pic for instance, and I'm just sitting at my desk doing work, what am I supposed to do? Send them back a pic of my coffee mug or something? Seems like they felt they had to do something to distinguish themselves from Snapchat but I'm not sure this is the answer. Time till tell though, I guess.
- Kiro 12y ago
  > Send them back a pic of my coffee mug or something? I love getting job pictures on Snapchat so I'm not so sure it will always be a case where something is more interesting than the other.
- minimaxir 12y ago
  There's a huge untapped market for sharing passive-aggressiveness on social media.
- alaoiigha 12y ago
  Well for one, you wouldn't know what his pic was. And two, that's going to be very very normal in this app. I like it because it's a pic conversation app (which i enjoy, with close friends) that forces interaction. For those of us already using similar things, this sort of structures our interaction into a conversation, rather than one person simply sending pics to the other. With that said, i can't help but feel i am the minority of users. Not just here on HN (lets be honest, most things are received poorly on HN), but all around. People have the sense of needing to send something meaningful in a picture, but i like simply idle chat, in picture form. It's neat
  - alttab 12y ago
    Why the hell would sending dud pictures to see a picture someone sent you be "normal" for the app? Couldn't we use Facebook, Snapchat, or SMS to get the same effect without literally working around a feature? Fucking retarded. Why would you want to use an app that "forces" interaction? Either the two mutual parties are interested in talking to each other, or they are not. Im sorry, but a photo sharing app like this one will not help my conversations be more engaging. It actually puts up barriers. "Neat" does not justify the money or engineering talent invested in it. If I was a Facebook share holder, I'd be confused as all hell.
Trufa 12y ago
Be careful if you're using headphones, scared me to death.
nthState 12y ago
HackerNews guys & gals are probably not the audience of the app, but the audience Facebook's aiming at will love it.
- dcope 12y ago
  Perhaps... but let's not forget about the "Poke" app which was their first run at a Snapchat clone. Anything FB puts out isn't an instant success.
- joeblau 12y ago
  That may be the case. What I wonder is how many people really trust Facebook to delete something?
  - miguelrochefort 12y ago
    People don't care and nor should you.
  - miguelrochefort 12y ago
    People don't care and nor should you.
edgyswingset 12y ago
I don't see how this can help then monetize more. Chances are the people who are using Slingshot already use Facebook. Where does the payoff on the investment kick in?
- SifJar 12y ago
  Maintaining/increasing interaction with Facebook. Same reason as they keep improving/changing the site and their main app, and making other side apps (e.g. Messenger). The greater the level of interaction from users, the more data they can gather etc. and also the more valuable the ads they sell become. Also maybe monetization via in-app ads (although probably not; snapchat doesn't have them, and they'll be wanting to compete).
  - edgyswingset 12y ago
    I guess I'm just not convinced that an app like this, which is a late clone of an insanely popular app within the target audience, will give them enough valuable data to where they can sell ads at a higher price. Monetizing in-app with the equivalent of stickers is a possibility, but since you can already draw on the pictures I doubt that would be very effective.
izolate 12y ago
I'm curious to know whether the slingshot team extensively "dogfooded" their application and found that the mandatory slingback requirement wasn't as bad as I'm expecting. I imagine they did. Surely they wouldn't release an app without adequate market research/qa. Still, I'm not convinced. I'll have to try it.
- devindotcom 12y ago
  I'm not convinced either, but I'm not going to try it. My immediate thought was DOA.
  - alttab 12y ago
    Same here. Its like sharing, but you have to share to let people share. Seems fucking stupid. Sending a picture is essentially asking for a picture. I can't imagine enough use cases where I think "I'll definitely want to send them this picture if they send me one first" to make this app stick, outside of sending naked pictures of myself in exchange for another one - which I never do. Outside of using the "must-share-to-care" rule as some sort of teasing or game mechanic, why would they literally create work to share? I simply don't get it. I'm also more than likely not their target market.
    - encoderer 12y ago
      Yes, you are clearly not their target market. > why would they literally create work to share? I simply don't get it. I don't think they did? You can send a pic as easy as ever. But there is "work" to receive it. If I want to see what a friend just sent me, I snap a pic of something and send it back. I think this will easily have DAU numbers that most startups would kill for. Whether it'll be big enough to justify at Facebook, though, remains to be seen.
      - alttab 12y ago
        The only way I could see it working is if you could easily send an integrated experience to a user who does not have the app. This would need to be from the web, have access to the camera, or ultimately download and install the app in the background. If the early adopters of Slingshot do not need to care about who uses slingshot, and its rather seamless for the receiver, I could see the install base spreading quickly. That will make things easier. Then again, its a trick. I think what remains to be seen is what sort of interation this enables, which prudently I suppose I'd say its too early to tell. Conservatively I'd say the numbers are against it.
josteink 12y ago
Not available to me because of my country? You mean because I'm not from the US? Screw that.
hoopism 12y ago
I am guessing this is something kids will use to share nude pics... wish I was a kid now...
- brianbarker 12y ago
  I'll show you mine...if you show me yours first?
  - alttab 12y ago
    and then send me a blank picture so you can see the one I sent for you. This way, a picture exchange requires at least 3 pictures. Seems like a win for usability to me. /s
- paulrov 12y ago
  Why would you want to do that via the network your parents hang out on.
minimaxir 12y ago
I've downloaded the app (username: minimaxir) and it's somewhat of a usability nightmare, much like the recent Snapchat update. The camera buttons are nearly invisible if you're facing a bright light source. (such as your face, which is a rather common use case with this type of app.) Additionally, there is absolutely no button for the app options: I found them completely by accident by tapping my username. This is minimalism gone too far.
jfasi 12y ago
This underscores what appears to be an interesting strategic move by Facebook: build an ecosystem of applications, which in turn encourages people to use their other products. In turn, this provides continued competition against Twitter, Tumblr, etc. The interesting thing about this app is that it's an experiment: viral success of social applications appears to be a hit or miss sort of thing, so why not throw many things at the wall and see what sticks á la Paper, Home, Messenger, or buy something already big á la Instagram or Snapchat. One benefit of this strategy is that it raises barriers to entry for your competitors: the more modes of social interaction you offer, the fewer opportunities for your competitors to chip away at your empire, and the more enticing your properties become to advertisers.
- minimaxir 12y ago
  The "barrier to entry" argument would be true if Slingshot was first. Slingshot was created as an attack on Snapchat. And that's after Facebook's previous attempt to attack Snapchat, Poke, failed miserably.
  - junto 12y ago
    I think there is a good reason for these failure. Personally I haven't installed any of these apps, deliberately because Facebook is behind them. I don't trust Facebook, period. They fall into the same box as Microsoft called "Do not trust. Do not re-open". For me, Facebook's historical lax attitude to users' privacy has put them permanently in my personal dog house. Mark Zuckerberg's mum should have introduced him to Aesop's Fables. These would have been the ones that Mark should have heeded: - http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheDogandtheHare http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheDogandtheHa... - http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheEagleandtheArrow2 http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheEagleandthe... - http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheHorseHunterandStag http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheHorseHunter... - http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&MercuryandtheWoodman http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&MercuryandtheW... - http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheShepherdsBoyandtheWolf http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheShepherdsBo... - http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheWolfinSheepsClothing2 http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheWolfinSheep...
k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> "Mr. Flynn, who said he thought up Slingshot as a way to push his brothers to respond to his photo messages" (From NTY)[1] What a bad reason to create a product. People don't want to respond to your messages so your create a way to try to force them to respond. Realistically they probably won't care enough to reply and now won't see your messages at all. [1] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/facebook-releases-slingshot-for-self-destructing-selfies http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/facebook-releases-s...
- alttab 12y ago
  Or download your stupid fucking app in the first place.
afandian 12y ago
502 Bad Gateway nginx/1.6.0 (edit: it works now. But it didn't 15 minutes ago)
jameshart 12y ago
We live in the age of wonders. The internet and mobile devices create endless possibilities for people to communicate, learn and interact. And at Facebook, a company which can, if it chooses, pick from among the brightest engineering minds and focus their efforts on any problem it chooses, the power to concentrate years of programming knowledge on the capabilities afforded to us by this astonishing bounty of personal technology has produced: "A new way to share photos and videos" And they don't even seem to have a monetization strategy for it.
- cliveowen 12y ago
  I'm happy to see someone who shares my exact same sentiment. I mean, when I read "but there's a catch, they have to send something first" I thought it was a joke. First of all, the fact that they made another snapchat with just a little spin on it says to me that they don't really know what they're doing; they're just after money, there's no vision behind it. Secondly, with all the useful products and services they could be developing for the betterment of society, they decided it would be a good idea to sink money in yet another pics sharing app. I fear the future will be just this: a selected few engineers making toys for the entertainment of the masses living on minimum wage. Bleak times indeed.
  - tothepixel 12y ago
    I think it's more indicative of the way applications are being used these days. Create a gimmick -> gain incredible popularity -> try to monetize your product -> users switch to the next gimmick -> create a new gimmick.
    - XorNot 12y ago
      Which does rather imply there's a big crash coming. That's not a zero-sum nor value-creating cycle: everyone will slowly haemorrhage users, at the risk that the next "thing" isn't something that easily centralizes to a corporation - i.e. a generation of school kids who get big into some type of mesh-networked thing which solely goes device to device. It would only have to be created once.
songzme 12y ago
This app brings to mind an excerpt for Larry Page - The untold Story: ... Up front, an executive pitched a new product that helped users find the right offline store to do their shopping. The executive was well into his pitch when, suddenly, Page interrupted him. “No,” Page said emphatically. “We don’t do this.” The room grew quiet. “We build products that leverage technology to solve huge problems for hundreds of millions of people.” He went on. “Look at Android. Look at Gmail. Look at Google Maps. Look at Google Search. That’s what we do. We build products you can’t live without.” “This is not it.” Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-story-2014-4#ixzz34vCgyQGy http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-story-2...
- loumf 12y ago
  But, don't you think the "No, we don't do this, we build products that ...." for Zuckerberg ends with "allow hundreds of millions of people to share photos and videos". Or something like that. Feels like there are many ways to share a photo/video and Facebook wants to make an app for each kind of way.
- outside1234 12y ago
  Also called the "toothbrush rule". Larry wouldn't allow a product that you didn't use twice a day to be developed at Google.
  - ionforce 12y ago
    I've never heard this before. I like this a lot. Kinda like the Bezos "pizza rule".
    - bradhe 12y ago
      ...because it has the word "rule" in it? That's about the only similarity between those two concepts.
  - otterley 12y ago
    But Slingshot might well qualify under the toothbrush rule. Never underestimate the bounds of people's vanity.
dang 12y ago
Related submissions that we buried as duplicates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7905539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7905539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7905532 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7905532 It's not always obvious which post to treat as canonical, but the current thread has the most substantive discussion.
6thSigma 12y ago
So Slingshot expects you to respond to something before you can find out what you're responding to?
rbosinger 12y ago
Chlorophyll? more like borophyll...
themark 12y ago
I notice that you have to sign up with your phone number. Could this be a clever way to link phones with Facebook accounts that do not have a phone number ?
- alttab 12y ago
  If Facebook is doing it, its a clever way to do something to help them serve you ads.
etrinh 12y ago
The app is pretty confusing to use. For those of you stuck like I was, you actually have to complete the tutorial in order to add people and start "slinging."
mrcwinn 12y ago
The only concept stranger than being encouraged to send a photo of such little value that it disappears, is being asked to respond to something you can't see.
huangc10 12y ago
why? serious question.
cantabrigian 12y ago
FaceBook Slingshot: where we incentivize you to share photos no matter what else you're doing, even if you're biking with a child strapped to the front and there's a glorious picture of your shadow on the ground. Nope, nope, there it is got it. Phew. (re: promo video)
gfodor 12y ago
It's obvious this is just another Facebook experiment to see if it sticks. To criticize the idea head on is dumb, I'm sure the people who built it have their own skepticism as well. Probably easy to build and launch, so they did. Criticize their methods (like focusing on photo/video apps in general, or on mass experimentation), not the specifics of experiments themselves if you want to be taken seriously. The least productive use of time is sitting around arguing if you think an idea would work, if it's easy to test.
- jvagner 12y ago
  Aww, c'mon. You're trying to promote a playfulness here that isn't justifiable in the present situation. How many stupid things can Facebook release before people stop paying attention to anything that Facebook releases? You're also arguing, it seems, that there's now a condition in the app marketplace where people building things have no real understanding of what will play in the marketplace, so developers shouldn't think too hard about whether or not an app idea is a good idea by any criteria, other than "Build it -- you never know what the plebes will go for." That may be how things seem to those of us who weren't lucky enough to build a stupid app and get rich off it, but who's gonna write that business book for McGraw-Hill?
  - gfodor 12y ago
    I'm arguing that the depth of consideration should be inversely proportional to the ease with which one can run a test. Certainly the people at Facebook had some intuition about if this new dynamic would be appealing to people. But the reality is the success of these types of apps are hard to predict based upon your own personal preferences, when you look at the way various apps split along demographic lines. This type of app is trivial for Facebook to build at this point, it's really just a matter of opportunity cost for them, so it seems likely they will continue to try various small tweaks to interaction models in order to find successes in this domain. And like I said, you can criticize the idea that they should be building these types of things in the first place. But people saying that this particular incarnation will never work because they don't "get" it haven't been paying attention the last 5 years in the mobile space, and those who lament the fact that all this talent was put into this app are probably overestimating the effort for a company like Facebook to produce something like this at this point.
mrpanda 12y ago
I guess this is game over for snapchat?
jpsim 12y ago
It's nice to see lots of some experiments come out of Facebook, but they should really be seen and treated as such. Is this a revolutionary product idea? No. Is it a platform for Facebook to see what sticks and then apply to its core offering? You bet.
simoneau 12y ago
OMG, where is the link that describes your product or service without having to listen to rock music while being fed half a sentence at a time, please? Oh, found it. It is labeled "Blog". And skip down to paragraph four.
mcintyre1994 12y ago
I wanted to have a look if any of my friends had this and apparently it can't be installed in the UK. Out of interest has anybody got this outside the US yet?
- miguelrochefort 12y ago
  Not available in Canada.
  - togedoge 12y ago
    Not available in Australia
    - tomhenderson 12y ago
      Not available in New Zealand
      - minikomi 12y ago
        Or Japan. Neither is Paper.
macu 12y ago
Not available via Play Store in Canada :( not even for the guy who gives new things a chance.
trempoline 12y ago
I admire the earnestness and innocence that makes a serious discussion of this possible. I, unfortunately, do not share those qualities. Trusting Facebook to provide "ephemeral messaging" is like trusting a dog to keep a roast beef sandwich safe.
rayiner 12y ago
If you don't have the attention span to sit through the montage, here's the money shot: http://blog.sling.me http://blog.sling.me (third paragraph down): > To get started on Slingshot, shoot a photo or video. It can be what you’re up to, who you’re with or a quick selfie. Add some text and color, then sling it to a bunch of friends. Here’s the deal: friends won’t be able to see your shot until they sling something back to you. They can then reply with a reaction—or simply swipe your shot away.
- x3c 12y ago
  Thanks, I'd no idea what that was till I read what you referenced.
benihana 12y ago
Facebook sees the writing on the wall. They replaced Myspace. Myspace (sorta) replaced Friendster. They know it's only a matter of time before someone else replaces them. They are trying as hard as they can to make sure it's an app built and controlled by them.
deleted 12y ago
[deleted]
ar_turnbull 12y ago
The great unbundling continues. I understand Facebook is worried about a new trend wiping them out, but I don't see how a defensive moat of look-alikes is going to save them. Other than Messenger, are any of Facebook's new apps gaining users? Or are they like Poke — destined to be retired.
kimonos 12y ago
Cool!
patcon 12y ago
I don't like this. I'm a proponent of the "slow web" -- a philosophy that treasures real-life reciprocation over online engagement. It eschews the idea of endorphin-releasing actions with the sole purpose but draining cognitive reservoirs. The idea of engaging in conversations with no point except "sharing" -- with reduced focus on meaningful dialogue and increased focus on the simplistic pleasure of "getting mail" -- I find this kinda repulsive. Perhaps this is grandiose, but it strikes me as the lowest common denominator of human interaction. Not looking forward to stuff like this... EDIT: And yes, I concede that it's pretty ingenious...! But I still don't like it. It's too much of a psychological hack for my tastes
silverbucket 12y ago
Great, another place jockeying to collect my data. Using fun social rewards to force people to submit more and more videos to their silo, but no, it's for you! Until we have enough of your data to make money off selling it to others and placing more and more restrictions on our service. Innovation?
i2oc 12y ago
Great, another social photo sharing app that is not available on Windows Phone. I guess that is life as a second class phone OS citizen.
kolev 12y ago
Honestly, they should've bid a couple more billions for Snapchat. And what a mess! I have one username on Facebook, another on Instagram, third on Slingshot - with the same company. That's why Twitter is my identity. Google+ is a mess, too. Twitter is identity and people protect and advertise their identity. All these others are recyclables. Tomorrow this can shut down and nobody will care. I'm surprised Facebook hasn't learned this. You can't even mention a username - it often finds the wrong people in the mentions, not even people who are friends. With Twitter, identity is solid. Anyway, maybe I'm pissed off as I missed to capture my username, but this doesn't mean I'm wrong. :)
bela_lugosi 12y ago
There was an app called Rando (rando.ustwo.se/ or techcrunch.com/2014/03/22/rip-rando/) that did the same thing and became hugely popular in a few weeks only, but the creators decided to take it down. I guess Facebook just saw the opportunity and stepped in.
songzme 12y ago
Just tried slingshot for a day and absolutely hate it. Never thought facebook is capable of fart apps. "... some genius decided to include a feature that requires you to message back to unlock slings that are sent to you. Really? What am I supposed to send them when I don't even know what their sling is about? This results in me sending an unlocker photo just to unlock an unlocker sling sent to me and the vicious cycle continues..." What results is a cycle of useless pictures taken just to unlock pictures. wtf? I'd suggest downloading it and playing with it just to learn from this uniquely frustrating experience.
fuire8 12y ago
yeah, get others ideas , do something similar and profit

142 points by jeremylevy 12y ago

One interesting thing I've noticed is facebook has been making a lot of new apps and widgets. Messenger, Paper, Slingshot. Seems to me that they are trying to increase engagement with the "new" factor. I think it's pretty smart.

merkury7 12y ago
Is there actually a significant user base for them though? I know Messenger was pretty much forced onto users, but other than that I don't know anyone who uses Paper, nor do I think any of my friends will start using Slingshot - especially when there are well established alternatives such as Snapchat. I'm doubtful many of them have even heard of these new apps, and this is coming from someone relatively young (20 y/o).

theg2 12y ago

The catch is a pretty big deal, and by deal I mean a deal breaker for me. Why do I have to share something back with someone in order to see what they've shared back at me? I understand it's great for engagement but who would use this over Snapchat or Instagram.

ihsw 12y ago
The concept kind of reminds me of Facebook poke wars, which are mildly entertaining in and of itself.
- Kiro 12y ago
  I didn't realize it when watching the promo video but you're actually spot on.
joelrunyon 12y ago
I had the same question. That doesn't even remotely mirror how an actual conversation works.
- bronson 12y ago
  It mirrors how a flamewar works.
gdilla 12y ago
It's not really sharing though. It's teasing or playing, much more like Snapchat. You wouldn't use this to share things. It would be too annoying.
alaiacano 12y ago
It's called "pic for pic" and I hear the kids are really into it.
- alttab 12y ago
  Its definitely because they are taking naked pictures of themselves.
furyofantares 12y ago
It's a game, or at least, it's playful.
interg12 12y ago
I like the idea. It could shake up the whole lurker pool of users or fail miserably. Wouldn't it be interesting to have a community of users that are 100% engaged?

prezjordan 12y ago

I see the "catch" as a never-ending chain, and the conversations will end quite awkwardly.

sb23 12y ago
That's a good point. You can't say "ok, see you there" or finish your conversation in any normal way without the other person sending yet another picture. One person will always end up with an unseen picture.

darrelld 12y ago

Seems like they're trying to create more interaction and it sounds like it would be fun...for the first couple of times. Who really wants to go out of their way to make a new video or photo to see something? We've all become accustomed to the instant gratification that the internet offers, why would we suddenly opt in for a slower experience? Or it will turn into people sharing the same generic useless video / picture over and over just to see a video a friend sent, but then at that point why use this product at all? But maybe I'm wrong and it will take the preteen / teen world by storm.

alaoiigha 12y ago
I'm actually excited, but only to use this with my GF and I. We do something similar with Hangouts, but this seems more fun due to the video support primarily. I have yet to find out if the videos are temporary (i hope so)
- alttab 12y ago
  Just like Snapchat's pictures were temporary?
eertami 12y ago
The audience for this app are already using Snapchat, and Slingshot offers no value above what Snapchat already offers - I don't see anyone switching.

orasis 12y ago

I'm feeling old since I seem to have an innate aversion to vertical photos or video.

Kopion 12y ago

From the Tech Crunch article [0]: "Over the next six months, they set out to build an app where “there’s way less pressure to create because everyone is creating”, Reuben says." I have never felt pressure to "create". Has anyone outside of the SV/SF bubble felt pressure to create? [0]: http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/17/facebook-slingshot/ http://techcrunch.com/2014/06/17/facebook-slingshot/

k-mcgrady 12y ago
>> ""Over the next six months, they set out to build an app where “there’s way less pressure to create because everyone is creating”" WHAT? How do they go from that to: "We should force people to create and send images, even if they don't want to, just so they can see what they've been send!"
- SifJar 12y ago
  This quote is best understood from within the context of the article. At my first glance, I thought the same as you, then I read the article. Basically, they're not saying that people shouldn't feel pressure to reciprocate (obviously), they're saying that people needn't feel pressure when "creating" something, because everyone else is "creating" stuff too, so most of it won't be excellent quality. They're not trying to discourage creation, but to make it that it's not intimidating to create, because of the vast amount of crappy content there will be (so yours won't stand out as particularly bad). That's my understanding of it from a (skim) read of the TechCrunch article linked.
  - k-mcgrady 12y ago
    Thanks for the context. I read a different article (NYT one) but was commenting here as it was the top voted one at the time on HN.
    - alttab 12y ago
      I hate Facebook status update anxiety. Some days I never leave my house.

dcpdx 12y ago

I'm not sure I understand the allure of this; perhaps I'm missing something. So I have to send a video/photo in response to someone who sent me one, in order to see what they sent? It seems like there would be a massive disparity in interesting activities between two parties at any given time to make this concept work. If one of my buddies is having a riot at Coachella and sends me a crazy festival pic for instance, and I'm just sitting at my desk doing work, what am I supposed to do? Send them back a pic of my coffee mug or something? Seems like they felt they had to do something to distinguish themselves from Snapchat but I'm not sure this is the answer. Time till tell though, I guess.

Kiro 12y ago
> Send them back a pic of my coffee mug or something? I love getting job pictures on Snapchat so I'm not so sure it will always be a case where something is more interesting than the other.
minimaxir 12y ago
There's a huge untapped market for sharing passive-aggressiveness on social media.
alaoiigha 12y ago
Well for one, you wouldn't know what his pic was. And two, that's going to be very very normal in this app. I like it because it's a pic conversation app (which i enjoy, with close friends) that forces interaction. For those of us already using similar things, this sort of structures our interaction into a conversation, rather than one person simply sending pics to the other. With that said, i can't help but feel i am the minority of users. Not just here on HN (lets be honest, most things are received poorly on HN), but all around. People have the sense of needing to send something meaningful in a picture, but i like simply idle chat, in picture form. It's neat
- alttab 12y ago
  Why the hell would sending dud pictures to see a picture someone sent you be "normal" for the app? Couldn't we use Facebook, Snapchat, or SMS to get the same effect without literally working around a feature? Fucking retarded. Why would you want to use an app that "forces" interaction? Either the two mutual parties are interested in talking to each other, or they are not. Im sorry, but a photo sharing app like this one will not help my conversations be more engaging. It actually puts up barriers. "Neat" does not justify the money or engineering talent invested in it. If I was a Facebook share holder, I'd be confused as all hell.

Trufa 12y ago

Be careful if you're using headphones, scared me to death.

nthState 12y ago

HackerNews guys & gals are probably not the audience of the app, but the audience Facebook's aiming at will love it.

dcope 12y ago
Perhaps... but let's not forget about the "Poke" app which was their first run at a Snapchat clone. Anything FB puts out isn't an instant success.
joeblau 12y ago
That may be the case. What I wonder is how many people really trust Facebook to delete something?
- miguelrochefort 12y ago
  People don't care and nor should you.
- miguelrochefort 12y ago
  People don't care and nor should you.

edgyswingset 12y ago

I don't see how this can help then monetize more. Chances are the people who are using Slingshot already use Facebook. Where does the payoff on the investment kick in?

SifJar 12y ago
Maintaining/increasing interaction with Facebook. Same reason as they keep improving/changing the site and their main app, and making other side apps (e.g. Messenger). The greater the level of interaction from users, the more data they can gather etc. and also the more valuable the ads they sell become. Also maybe monetization via in-app ads (although probably not; snapchat doesn't have them, and they'll be wanting to compete).
- edgyswingset 12y ago
  I guess I'm just not convinced that an app like this, which is a late clone of an insanely popular app within the target audience, will give them enough valuable data to where they can sell ads at a higher price. Monetizing in-app with the equivalent of stickers is a possibility, but since you can already draw on the pictures I doubt that would be very effective.

izolate 12y ago

I'm curious to know whether the slingshot team extensively "dogfooded" their application and found that the mandatory slingback requirement wasn't as bad as I'm expecting. I imagine they did. Surely they wouldn't release an app without adequate market research/qa. Still, I'm not convinced. I'll have to try it.

devindotcom 12y ago
I'm not convinced either, but I'm not going to try it. My immediate thought was DOA.
- alttab 12y ago
  Same here. Its like sharing, but you have to share to let people share. Seems fucking stupid. Sending a picture is essentially asking for a picture. I can't imagine enough use cases where I think "I'll definitely want to send them this picture if they send me one first" to make this app stick, outside of sending naked pictures of myself in exchange for another one - which I never do. Outside of using the "must-share-to-care" rule as some sort of teasing or game mechanic, why would they literally create work to share? I simply don't get it. I'm also more than likely not their target market.
  - encoderer 12y ago
    Yes, you are clearly not their target market. > why would they literally create work to share? I simply don't get it. I don't think they did? You can send a pic as easy as ever. But there is "work" to receive it. If I want to see what a friend just sent me, I snap a pic of something and send it back. I think this will easily have DAU numbers that most startups would kill for. Whether it'll be big enough to justify at Facebook, though, remains to be seen.
    - alttab 12y ago
      The only way I could see it working is if you could easily send an integrated experience to a user who does not have the app. This would need to be from the web, have access to the camera, or ultimately download and install the app in the background. If the early adopters of Slingshot do not need to care about who uses slingshot, and its rather seamless for the receiver, I could see the install base spreading quickly. That will make things easier. Then again, its a trick. I think what remains to be seen is what sort of interation this enables, which prudently I suppose I'd say its too early to tell. Conservatively I'd say the numbers are against it.

josteink 12y ago

Not available to me because of my country? You mean because I'm not from the US? Screw that.

hoopism 12y ago

I am guessing this is something kids will use to share nude pics... wish I was a kid now...

brianbarker 12y ago
I'll show you mine...if you show me yours first?
- alttab 12y ago
  and then send me a blank picture so you can see the one I sent for you. This way, a picture exchange requires at least 3 pictures. Seems like a win for usability to me. /s
paulrov 12y ago
Why would you want to do that via the network your parents hang out on.

minimaxir 12y ago

I've downloaded the app (username: minimaxir) and it's somewhat of a usability nightmare, much like the recent Snapchat update. The camera buttons are nearly invisible if you're facing a bright light source. (such as your face, which is a rather common use case with this type of app.) Additionally, there is absolutely no button for the app options: I found them completely by accident by tapping my username. This is minimalism gone too far.

jfasi 12y ago

This underscores what appears to be an interesting strategic move by Facebook: build an ecosystem of applications, which in turn encourages people to use their other products. In turn, this provides continued competition against Twitter, Tumblr, etc. The interesting thing about this app is that it's an experiment: viral success of social applications appears to be a hit or miss sort of thing, so why not throw many things at the wall and see what sticks á la Paper, Home, Messenger, or buy something already big á la Instagram or Snapchat. One benefit of this strategy is that it raises barriers to entry for your competitors: the more modes of social interaction you offer, the fewer opportunities for your competitors to chip away at your empire, and the more enticing your properties become to advertisers.

minimaxir 12y ago
The "barrier to entry" argument would be true if Slingshot was first. Slingshot was created as an attack on Snapchat. And that's after Facebook's previous attempt to attack Snapchat, Poke, failed miserably.
- junto 12y ago
  I think there is a good reason for these failure. Personally I haven't installed any of these apps, deliberately because Facebook is behind them. I don't trust Facebook, period. They fall into the same box as Microsoft called "Do not trust. Do not re-open". For me, Facebook's historical lax attitude to users' privacy has put them permanently in my personal dog house. Mark Zuckerberg's mum should have introduced him to Aesop's Fables. These would have been the ones that Mark should have heeded: - http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheDogandtheHare http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheDogandtheHa... - http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheEagleandtheArrow2 http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheEagleandthe... - http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheHorseHunterandStag http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheHorseHunter... - http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&MercuryandtheWoodman http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&MercuryandtheW... - http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheShepherdsBoyandtheWolf http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheShepherdsBo... - http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheWolfinSheepsClothing2 http://www.aesopfables.com/cgi/aesop1.cgi?sel&TheWolfinSheep...

k-mcgrady 12y ago

>> "Mr. Flynn, who said he thought up Slingshot as a way to push his brothers to respond to his photo messages" (From NTY)[1] What a bad reason to create a product. People don't want to respond to your messages so your create a way to try to force them to respond. Realistically they probably won't care enough to reply and now won't see your messages at all. [1] http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/facebook-releases-slingshot-for-self-destructing-selfies http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2014/06/17/facebook-releases-s...

alttab 12y ago
Or download your stupid fucking app in the first place.

afandian 12y ago

502 Bad Gateway nginx/1.6.0 (edit: it works now. But it didn't 15 minutes ago)

jameshart 12y ago

We live in the age of wonders. The internet and mobile devices create endless possibilities for people to communicate, learn and interact. And at Facebook, a company which can, if it chooses, pick from among the brightest engineering minds and focus their efforts on any problem it chooses, the power to concentrate years of programming knowledge on the capabilities afforded to us by this astonishing bounty of personal technology has produced: "A new way to share photos and videos" And they don't even seem to have a monetization strategy for it.

cliveowen 12y ago
I'm happy to see someone who shares my exact same sentiment. I mean, when I read "but there's a catch, they have to send something first" I thought it was a joke. First of all, the fact that they made another snapchat with just a little spin on it says to me that they don't really know what they're doing; they're just after money, there's no vision behind it. Secondly, with all the useful products and services they could be developing for the betterment of society, they decided it would be a good idea to sink money in yet another pics sharing app. I fear the future will be just this: a selected few engineers making toys for the entertainment of the masses living on minimum wage. Bleak times indeed.
- tothepixel 12y ago
  I think it's more indicative of the way applications are being used these days. Create a gimmick -> gain incredible popularity -> try to monetize your product -> users switch to the next gimmick -> create a new gimmick.
  - XorNot 12y ago
    Which does rather imply there's a big crash coming. That's not a zero-sum nor value-creating cycle: everyone will slowly haemorrhage users, at the risk that the next "thing" isn't something that easily centralizes to a corporation - i.e. a generation of school kids who get big into some type of mesh-networked thing which solely goes device to device. It would only have to be created once.

songzme 12y ago

This app brings to mind an excerpt for Larry Page - The untold Story: ... Up front, an executive pitched a new product that helped users find the right offline store to do their shopping. The executive was well into his pitch when, suddenly, Page interrupted him. “No,” Page said emphatically. “We don’t do this.” The room grew quiet. “We build products that leverage technology to solve huge problems for hundreds of millions of people.” He went on. “Look at Android. Look at Gmail. Look at Google Maps. Look at Google Search. That’s what we do. We build products you can’t live without.” “This is not it.” Read more: http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-story-2014-4#ixzz34vCgyQGy http://www.businessinsider.com/larry-page-the-untold-story-2...

loumf 12y ago
But, don't you think the "No, we don't do this, we build products that ...." for Zuckerberg ends with "allow hundreds of millions of people to share photos and videos". Or something like that. Feels like there are many ways to share a photo/video and Facebook wants to make an app for each kind of way.
outside1234 12y ago
Also called the "toothbrush rule". Larry wouldn't allow a product that you didn't use twice a day to be developed at Google.
- ionforce 12y ago
  I've never heard this before. I like this a lot. Kinda like the Bezos "pizza rule".
  - bradhe 12y ago
    ...because it has the word "rule" in it? That's about the only similarity between those two concepts.
- otterley 12y ago
  But Slingshot might well qualify under the toothbrush rule. Never underestimate the bounds of people's vanity.

dang 12y ago

Related submissions that we buried as duplicates: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7905539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7905539 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7905532 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=7905532 It's not always obvious which post to treat as canonical, but the current thread has the most substantive discussion.

6thSigma 12y ago

So Slingshot expects you to respond to something before you can find out what you're responding to?

rbosinger 12y ago

Chlorophyll? more like borophyll...

themark 12y ago

I notice that you have to sign up with your phone number. Could this be a clever way to link phones with Facebook accounts that do not have a phone number ?

alttab 12y ago
If Facebook is doing it, its a clever way to do something to help them serve you ads.

etrinh 12y ago

The app is pretty confusing to use. For those of you stuck like I was, you actually have to complete the tutorial in order to add people and start "slinging."

mrcwinn 12y ago

The only concept stranger than being encouraged to send a photo of such little value that it disappears, is being asked to respond to something you can't see.

huangc10 12y ago

why? serious question.

cantabrigian 12y ago

FaceBook Slingshot: where we incentivize you to share photos no matter what else you're doing, even if you're biking with a child strapped to the front and there's a glorious picture of your shadow on the ground. Nope, nope, there it is got it. Phew. (re: promo video)

gfodor 12y ago

It's obvious this is just another Facebook experiment to see if it sticks. To criticize the idea head on is dumb, I'm sure the people who built it have their own skepticism as well. Probably easy to build and launch, so they did. Criticize their methods (like focusing on photo/video apps in general, or on mass experimentation), not the specifics of experiments themselves if you want to be taken seriously. The least productive use of time is sitting around arguing if you think an idea would work, if it's easy to test.

jvagner 12y ago
Aww, c'mon. You're trying to promote a playfulness here that isn't justifiable in the present situation. How many stupid things can Facebook release before people stop paying attention to anything that Facebook releases? You're also arguing, it seems, that there's now a condition in the app marketplace where people building things have no real understanding of what will play in the marketplace, so developers shouldn't think too hard about whether or not an app idea is a good idea by any criteria, other than "Build it -- you never know what the plebes will go for." That may be how things seem to those of us who weren't lucky enough to build a stupid app and get rich off it, but who's gonna write that business book for McGraw-Hill?
- gfodor 12y ago
  I'm arguing that the depth of consideration should be inversely proportional to the ease with which one can run a test. Certainly the people at Facebook had some intuition about if this new dynamic would be appealing to people. But the reality is the success of these types of apps are hard to predict based upon your own personal preferences, when you look at the way various apps split along demographic lines. This type of app is trivial for Facebook to build at this point, it's really just a matter of opportunity cost for them, so it seems likely they will continue to try various small tweaks to interaction models in order to find successes in this domain. And like I said, you can criticize the idea that they should be building these types of things in the first place. But people saying that this particular incarnation will never work because they don't "get" it haven't been paying attention the last 5 years in the mobile space, and those who lament the fact that all this talent was put into this app are probably overestimating the effort for a company like Facebook to produce something like this at this point.

mrpanda 12y ago

I guess this is game over for snapchat?

jpsim 12y ago

It's nice to see lots of some experiments come out of Facebook, but they should really be seen and treated as such. Is this a revolutionary product idea? No. Is it a platform for Facebook to see what sticks and then apply to its core offering? You bet.

simoneau 12y ago

OMG, where is the link that describes your product or service without having to listen to rock music while being fed half a sentence at a time, please? Oh, found it. It is labeled "Blog". And skip down to paragraph four.

mcintyre1994 12y ago

I wanted to have a look if any of my friends had this and apparently it can't be installed in the UK. Out of interest has anybody got this outside the US yet?

miguelrochefort 12y ago
Not available in Canada.
- togedoge 12y ago
  Not available in Australia
  - tomhenderson 12y ago
    Not available in New Zealand
    - minikomi 12y ago
      Or Japan. Neither is Paper.

macu 12y ago

Not available via Play Store in Canada :( not even for the guy who gives new things a chance.

trempoline 12y ago

I admire the earnestness and innocence that makes a serious discussion of this possible. I, unfortunately, do not share those qualities. Trusting Facebook to provide "ephemeral messaging" is like trusting a dog to keep a roast beef sandwich safe.

rayiner 12y ago

If you don't have the attention span to sit through the montage, here's the money shot: http://blog.sling.me http://blog.sling.me (third paragraph down): > To get started on Slingshot, shoot a photo or video. It can be what you’re up to, who you’re with or a quick selfie. Add some text and color, then sling it to a bunch of friends. Here’s the deal: friends won’t be able to see your shot until they sling something back to you. They can then reply with a reaction—or simply swipe your shot away.

x3c 12y ago
Thanks, I'd no idea what that was till I read what you referenced.

benihana 12y ago

Facebook sees the writing on the wall. They replaced Myspace. Myspace (sorta) replaced Friendster. They know it's only a matter of time before someone else replaces them. They are trying as hard as they can to make sure it's an app built and controlled by them.

deleted 12y ago

[deleted]

ar_turnbull 12y ago

The great unbundling continues. I understand Facebook is worried about a new trend wiping them out, but I don't see how a defensive moat of look-alikes is going to save them. Other than Messenger, are any of Facebook's new apps gaining users? Or are they like Poke — destined to be retired.

kimonos 12y ago

Cool!

patcon 12y ago

I don't like this. I'm a proponent of the "slow web" -- a philosophy that treasures real-life reciprocation over online engagement. It eschews the idea of endorphin-releasing actions with the sole purpose but draining cognitive reservoirs. The idea of engaging in conversations with no point except "sharing" -- with reduced focus on meaningful dialogue and increased focus on the simplistic pleasure of "getting mail" -- I find this kinda repulsive. Perhaps this is grandiose, but it strikes me as the lowest common denominator of human interaction. Not looking forward to stuff like this... EDIT: And yes, I concede that it's pretty ingenious...! But I still don't like it. It's too much of a psychological hack for my tastes

silverbucket 12y ago

Great, another place jockeying to collect my data. Using fun social rewards to force people to submit more and more videos to their silo, but no, it's for you! Until we have enough of your data to make money off selling it to others and placing more and more restrictions on our service. Innovation?

i2oc 12y ago

Great, another social photo sharing app that is not available on Windows Phone. I guess that is life as a second class phone OS citizen.

kolev 12y ago

Honestly, they should've bid a couple more billions for Snapchat. And what a mess! I have one username on Facebook, another on Instagram, third on Slingshot - with the same company. That's why Twitter is my identity. Google+ is a mess, too. Twitter is identity and people protect and advertise their identity. All these others are recyclables. Tomorrow this can shut down and nobody will care. I'm surprised Facebook hasn't learned this. You can't even mention a username - it often finds the wrong people in the mentions, not even people who are friends. With Twitter, identity is solid. Anyway, maybe I'm pissed off as I missed to capture my username, but this doesn't mean I'm wrong. :)

bela_lugosi 12y ago

There was an app called Rando (rando.ustwo.se/ or techcrunch.com/2014/03/22/rip-rando/) that did the same thing and became hugely popular in a few weeks only, but the creators decided to take it down. I guess Facebook just saw the opportunity and stepped in.

songzme 12y ago

Just tried slingshot for a day and absolutely hate it. Never thought facebook is capable of fart apps. "... some genius decided to include a feature that requires you to message back to unlock slings that are sent to you. Really? What am I supposed to send them when I don't even know what their sling is about? This results in me sending an unlocker photo just to unlock an unlocker sling sent to me and the vicious cycle continues..." What results is a cycle of useless pictures taken just to unlock pictures. wtf? I'd suggest downloading it and playing with it just to learn from this uniquely frustrating experience.

fuire8 12y ago

yeah, get others ideas , do something similar and profit