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Facebook Slingshot – A new way to share photos and videos

sling.me

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Re: Facebook Slingshot – A new way to share photos and videos

#31

Post by SifJar »

k-mcgrady wrote: post #9
Kopion wrote: post #7

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/

>> ""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!"

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.

Re: Facebook Slingshot – A new way to share photos and videos

#32

Post by SifJar »

edgyswingset wrote: post #17

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?

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).

Re: Facebook Slingshot – A new way to share photos and videos

#34

Post by k-mcgrady »

SifJar wrote: post #31
k-mcgrady wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>> ""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!"

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…

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.

Re: Facebook Slingshot – A new way to share photos and videos

#35

Post by songzme »

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-2...

Re: Facebook Slingshot – A new way to share photos and videos

#36

Post by cliveowen »

jameshart wrote: post #30

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…

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.

Re: Facebook Slingshot – A new way to share photos and videos

#37

Post by alaiacano »

theg2 wrote: post #2

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.

It's called "pic for pic" and I hear the kids are really into it.

Re: Facebook Slingshot – A new way to share photos and videos

#38

Post by debt »

jfasi wrote: post #26

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 th…

"build an ecosystem of applications,"

Google tried this in the mid-oughts. They stopped and began focusing mostly on Android, Search/Ads and YouTube. They rolled all that random idea/app shit into Google X. Apparently, Steve Jobs and the Google founders sat down and he basically said focus or die. So Google focused. I'm sure there's a Google graveyard out there that highlights all the apps they attempted to make, a few are still kicking like finance and news. But like Reader is huge shutdown from that period.

FB will likely do the same thing while it finds it's voice.

Re: Facebook Slingshot – A new way to share photos and videos

#39

Post by devindotcom »

jameshart wrote: post #30

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…

I'm with you to a point, but this objection is a close relative of the "we can put a man on the moon, but we can't ______?" argument.

There are other companies, not focused from the beginning on advancing social connection in the Internet age, that are spending billions of dollars and millions of man-hours on improving the world in other ways.

Re: Facebook Slingshot – A new way to share photos and videos

#40

Post by devindotcom »

izolate wrote: post #18

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.

I'm not convinced either, but I'm not going to try it. My immediate thought was DOA.
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