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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

#71

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…

> And they don't even seem to have a monetization strategy for it.

They'll collect the location information, your circle of friends, etc. and enrich your profile (what they know about you). That helps them monetize better.

FB is an ad network, basically (or will become one). They have data on ~1B users, and the value of this data goes up with the amount of interaction there is between users.

Outside of Search, ads monetize pretty badly (what are Display ad CPMs now.. $0.50? ). That's because of extremely low engagement. The more data FB has about you, the more engaging ad it can pick for you; and thus they can charge a lot more.

So this product by itself doesn't have to monetize at all, as long as the net effect of this product is higher value for FB.

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

#72
post #35

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 mi…

"a new product that helped users find the right offline store to do their shopping"

I'd love an app that did that. I'd love inventory search for brick-and-mortar stores. I'd love an app that let me know where a product is located in a store.

In fact, Google Maps on my phone does part of this with it's "Explore nearby" feature, which I've used more than once. Maybe the time just wasn't right for Larry Page to accept it back then.

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

#73
post #56

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…

People want to spend lots of time sharing photos of themselves and cats. Blame humans not Facebook.

Exactly. The parent of your comment says "The internet and mobile devices create endless possibilities for people to communicate, learn and interact."

How are people going to communicate and interact? Probably by sending text, images, and videos to each other...I'd love to hear some proposals for alternatives but I'm kind of tired of the "cat photo sharing" pejorative, because that's what people want, that's how they connect with each other, and if you can actually come up with a better idea you'll be very wealthy.

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

#76
post #72
post #35

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 mi…

"a new product that helped users find the right offline store to do their shopping" I'd love an app that did that. I'd love inventory search for brick-and-mortar stores. I'd love an app that let me know where a product is located in a store. In fact, Google Maps on my phone does part of this with it's "Explore nearby" feature, which I've used more than once. Maybe the time just wasn't right for Larry Page to accept i…

http://redlaser.com/

http://milo.com/

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

#77
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)

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

#78

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…

[deleted]

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

#79
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.

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

#80
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/

In a similar vein, there were news articles a while back that talked about how moms using Pinterest felt inadequate when they didn't do enough "creative" things for their children.
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