Slingshot Gets Another Shot With A New Twist And A 2.0 Version

I think you’re already familiar with the tale – once upon a time a little company named Snapchat turned down a 3 billion dollar offer from another little company called  Facebook. Since the other little company had much more than 3 billion at their disposal, as well as a great big team of designers, developers and all the other „ers“ needed to make an app, Slingshot was born (available at Sling.Me!) and stunningly enough, it resembled Snapchat.

Basically, both apps allowed you to create and share pictures and videos that will eventually be erased from the cyberspace. However, Slingshot had added a little extra spice, making users work for their photo-messages. After you received shots from your friends, you couldn’t view them immediately – you had to send another one back to unlock the content.

Less Fuss = More Users

Although this feature was designed to make the app more interactive, it drove many users away – apparently, plain and simple was the way to go, and that was the way of the Snapchat.

But Slingshot’s not dead – as all smart projects do, it just pivoted, and in the 2.0 version, it’s bringing a very different concept to the table. In the new and improved version, you can follow friends like on Twitter or Instagram and your images are published in a Feed, like they are on Facebook. This allows your friends and followers to interact by sharing an image of their own, just like a photo-comment on Facebook.

Not all the old features are gone – your images still expire after 24 hours, or after a friend you intended it for has viewed it.

This combination may resonate better with users, used to this kind of interaction on Facebook, but it also has that real-time synchronous effect of Twitter and Snapchat.

It’s sharing life as it happens, as the blog post introducing the new version states:

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 that we’re super excited to release today.

The new Slingshot: Share life as it happens.

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.

Have you already set your hands on the new app? We’d love to hear how you like the new version!