Facebook is developing video app Slingshot for months and means to challenge rival Snapchat in the video-chat app market, the Financial Times reported, citing people familiar with its plans. Slingshot could launch this month, one person said, cautioning that Facebook might still decide not to proceed with the product. CEO Mark Zuckerberg has been overseeing the project after failing to take over over Snapchat late last year with a USD 3 billion takeover offer.
The Singshot app allows users to send short video messages with just a few taps of the screen. It is said to resemble TapTalk, a new video-messaging app from Berlin-based Wit Dot Media released last month, in which users tap or hold a contact’s profile picture to instantly send a photo or short video, which can be viewed only once by the recipient.
The app will likely stand alone from texting app Facebook Messenger as part of Zuckerberg’s strategy of unbundling the group’s social network into standalone mobile services.
