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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

#131

Post by unclebucknasty »

npizzolato wrote: post #125
unclebucknasty wrote: post #121

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Sharing photos and videos is an activity that brings meaning to billions of lives, and it's not unreasonable to try to improve upon it. On the other hand, the "meaning" that people derive from sharing can be defined in some basic terms (e.g. interaction, connection, etc.). At what point does the incremental "improvement" in sharing mechanics no longer justify the resources required to produce that improvement? Firs…

It's these comments that get a little old. Yes, obviously Facebook wants to make more money, and they do that by selling your information to advertisers. Thanks for the reminder. At the same time, I don't think it's a stretch to say that Facebook has enriched the lives of millions of people. I know it has allowed me to stay in touch with family and friends who I otherwise would probably speak to more rarely. That's m…

Honestly, it's these predictable replies that are even older.

>Facebook has enriched the lives of millions of people

Right. So, not saying Facebook has no utility. Yes, we know it serves a purpose for a lot of people. Clearly.

>it has allowed me to stay in touch with family and friends who I otherwise would probably speak to more rarely.

Yes, we also know that's the number one use case, which serves as Facebook's crowning contribution to humanity. I won't argue what it means to you or anyone else personally. I do think it replaces more meaningful interaction with a relatively superficial pub/sub model. I also believe that it isolates people and I am aware of studies which have indicated the same. That you and others find some value in it doesn't make it a net positive for society, or even for you for that matter. But, that's really not my argument anyway.

>they live halfway across the country, so it's not that easy.

Well, you could call them and invest some one-on-one time if they were meaningful relationships but, in any case, I am referring more to the overall tendancy of people to marginalize an increasing number of relationships (even local) to a pub/sub tool like Facebook. But, really, I am objecting more to this never-ending devaluing of relationships by Facebook whose motive is to capture your social activity (relationships) by any means necessary, irrespective of the actual value-add (or subtract) to those relationships.

Of course we all know that their purpose is to make money. I wasn't dropping that as a great revelation. My point is that it should and does matter that we give so much of our relationships over to a company whose interests may run orthogonal to the preservation of value in those relationships.

>The fact that your comment on an online forum suggests otherwise is particularly rich.

It's really not. You just missed the point.

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

#132

Post by alttab »

alaoiigha wrote: post #82
alttab wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why the hell would sending dud pictures to see a picture someone sent you be "normal" for the app? Couldn't we use Facebook, Snapchat, or SMS to get the same effect without literally working around a feature? Fucking retarded. Why would you want to use an app that "forces" interaction? Either the two mutual parties are interested in talking to each other, or they are not. Im sorry, but a photo sharing app like this o…

I'd say Snapchat is the comparison, and yes, you literally could. It's almost as if people and companies create products to compete with other products. Multiple types of bread, what madness is this. I could literally use the same type of bread from this other company! > "Neat" does not justify the money or engineering talent invested in it. If I was a Facebook share holder, I'd be confused as all hell. lol i wasn't…

So I won't knock on you enjoying it, because thats subjective. How do you use it though, you'll need to eventually sell all your facebook friends to use it as well since you like it so much. You'll have to convince them why forcing to send you a picture to see what you send them is better for them.

For this reason, I see it literally as an uphill battle for it to gain traction. Hoping that you are right, and that Facebook as learned something from their mistakes and will take their edge and use it - instead of building a completely separate app with a disjointed use case and calling it social innovation. Give me a break!

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

#133

Post by alttab »

encoderer wrote: post #116
alttab wrote: post #59

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Same here. Its like sharing, but you have to share to let people share. Seems fucking stupid. Sending a picture is essentially asking for a picture. I can't imagine enough use cases where I think "I'll definitely want to send them this picture if they send me one first" to make this app stick, outside of sending naked pictures of myself in exchange for another one - which I never do. Outside of using the "must-share-…

Yes, you are clearly not their target market. > why would they literally create work to share? I simply don't get it. I don't think they did? You can send a pic as easy as ever. But there is "work" to receive it. If I want to see what a friend just sent me, I snap a pic of something and send it back. I think this will easily have DAU numbers that most startups would kill for. Whether it'll be big enough to justify at…

The only way I could see it working is if you could easily send an integrated experience to a user who does not have the app. This would need to be from the web, have access to the camera, or ultimately download and install the app in the background.

If the early adopters of Slingshot do not need to care about who uses slingshot, and its rather seamless for the receiver, I could see the install base spreading quickly. That will make things easier. Then again, its a trick.

I think what remains to be seen is what sort of interation this enables, which prudently I suppose I'd say its too early to tell.

Conservatively I'd say the numbers are against it.

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

#134

Post by devindotcom »

downandout wrote: post #112
devindotcom wrote: post #39

Earlier quoted context omitted.

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.

> improving the world in other ways Are you implying that Slingshot has improved the world?

nope

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

#135

Post by kolev »

Honestly, they should've bid a couple more billions for Snapchat. And what a mess! I have one username on Facebook, another on Instagram, third on Slingshot - with the same company. That's why Twitter is my identity. Google+ is a mess, too. Twitter is identity and people protect and advertise their identity. All these others are recyclables. Tomorrow this can shut down and nobody will care. I'm surprised Facebook hasn't learned this. You can't even mention a username - it often finds the wrong people in the mentions, not even people who are friends. With Twitter, identity is solid. Anyway, maybe I'm pissed off as I missed to capture my username, but this doesn't mean I'm wrong. :)

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

#136

Post by vtlynch »

jameshart wrote: post #81
ed209 wrote: post #47

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Did you know there are over 150 varieties of Finches? Each slightly different, maybe color difference or a larger beak or bigger wingspan. They came about by iterating on the Finches that came before. In fact, that's how most advancements come about in nature, poetry, art, and yes, even technology. We take what came before an iterate on it. I'm trying to think of a giant leap that came out of nowhere, but I can't. Ph…

I like this analogy. Silicon valley generates random mutations of existing ideas, without thought or direction, and occasionally lands, by pure chance, on something slightly better, which survives at the expense of other inferior mutations. I guess that maybe the developers working on "a new way to share photos and video" kid themselves that they're making something different; something that really is revolutionary.…

> Silicon valley generates random mutations of existing ideas, without thought or direction, and occasionally lands, by pure chance, on something slightly better.

I would say that people do this. Silicon Valley does not do this "without thought or direction," but instead with great forethought and direction in the form of a "business plan."

The problem I see with this, is that this is not some earnest effort to improve photo sharing, but an obvious attempt to clone an existing and popular service with the hope of mining its popularity.

Truly the developers of this cannot think they created "a new way to share photos and video," unless they are ill. All they have done is applied a modest novelty to an existing concept. Not quite a "mutation" in the sense of a new species of Finch, but more in the vein of a parasite.

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

#137

Post by carlob »

dcpdx wrote: post #8

I'm not sure I understand the allure of this; perhaps I'm missing something. So I have to send a video/photo in response to someone who sent me one, in order to see what they sent? It seems like there would be a massive disparity in interesting activities between two parties at any given time to make this concept work. If one of my buddies is having a riot at Coachella and sends me a crazy festival pic for instance,…

My first thought was: "this is for sexting".

The reason why the tag line is not "You show me yours I show you mine" escapes me.

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

#138

Post by thibauts »

XorNot wrote: post #113
tothepixel wrote: post #67

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I think it's more indicative of the way applications are being used these days. Create a gimmick -> gain incredible popularity -> try to monetize your product -> users switch to the next gimmick -> create a new gimmick.

Which does rather imply there's a big crash coming. That's not a zero-sum nor value-creating cycle: everyone will slowly haemorrhage users, at the risk that the next "thing" isn't something that easily centralizes to a corporation - i.e. a generation of school kids who get big into some type of mesh-networked thing which solely goes device to device. It would only have to be created once.

If it's created as a platform (hear, a protocol) it may effectively need to be created only once. The whole online world is unknowingly waiting for it, and I feel it coming our way like, at raging speed.

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

#139

Post by x3c »

rayiner wrote: post #97

If you don't have the attention span to sit through the montage, here's the money shot: http://blog.sling.me (third paragraph down): > To get started on Slingshot, shoot a photo or video. It can be what you’re up to, who you’re with or a quick selfie. Add some text and color, then sling it to a bunch of friends. Here’s the deal: friends won’t be able to see your shot until they sling something back to you. They can t…

Thanks, I'd no idea what that was till I read what you referenced.

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

#140

Post by throwaway_2084 »

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…

cynical piece of shit. you don't understand how innovation works. the world is full of people like you and it is quite sad. more sad to see this as the top comment on hn
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