Its safe to say that Snapchat is very popular. Recently it released a new update for the app which brought a couple of major features, the update caused such a stir in its target teen audience that a teacher thought nothing had disrupted her classroom more. While there are a couple of Snapchat rivals it looks like Facebook might be dedicating its significantly vast resources to building a bona fide Snapchat competitor of its own.
This report comes on the heels of revelations that Facebook was trying to acquire Snapchat. It apparently bid as much as $3 billion but the company didn’t budge. It reportedly didn’t even consider Google’s $4 billion offer. It isn’t known if Mountain View is working on something along the same lines but Financial Times reports that Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg is personally supervising this new project codenamed “Slingshot.”
The idea behind Facebook’s new “ephemeral messaging” app won’t be something too different. It will allow users to send pictures and videos to one another that disappear after a pre-determined time. The report claims Facebook might release its new Snapchat competitor within this month.
This isn’t the first time that the world’s largest social network has taken the fight to Facebook. Back in 2012 it launched Poke, an app with similar functions. To say that it didn’t take off would be an understatement. Zuckerberg himself branded it as a “joke,” and earlier this week the app was finally discontinued. Rumor has it that Facebook developed the app just within 12 hours.
Facebook’s Creative Labs group is reportedly handling the development of this new application. The already have the beautifully designed and well received Facebook Paper app as part of their portfolio, so there’s a strong possibility that they might surprise us all the second time around as well.