To snatch Snapchat users, Facebook has been working on a video chat app for months. It seems to be called Slingshot, and should have a simple interface: just a couple of clicks on the smartphone screen to send a video message. The anticipation was published today by the Financial Times, which believes the launch of the application is likely as early as this month.
Mark Zuckerberg, head of the Menlo Park (California) group, is overseeing the secret project, after failing to convince the founders of Snapchat – Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy – to sell their creature for three billion dollars. The app allows you to send videos and photos that should disappear immediately after viewing (although someone has managed to keep the files in the past, sparking a torrent of controversy). Snapchat recently made an update that includes text messaging and video calling.
After taking over WhatsApp, Facebook is sharpening its weapons to attract more and more young people, the target of users who seem to use the largest social network in the world less and less. A close relative of Slingshot is TapTalk, a new messaging app from Berlin-based Wit Dot Media: in this case, the user clicks or presses and holds a contact's profile picture to instantly send a photo or short video that can only be seen once by the receiver.
