Slingshot allows users send a photo or video with text or drawings to another person. The recipient, however, can not open the picture without acknowledging that they want to open it and “sling” another image back to the initial sender.
After playing with this for a little bit, I'm DIGGING it. Sharing images as stories (with the ability to get them out to social media) is awesome and actually works far better than Snapchat's own competing feature.
Slingshot so much more sense than the original product. If anyone wants to try it, hit me on 'owenw'
edit: The annoying part with this is with 'reactions' you still need to reply with a photo to friends. I imagine they'll implement something like Snapchat's actual chat thing later, but this is a bit tiring taking a photo to just put some text on it.
@ow there was a ton of frustration with the "send to unlock" and some of the UX decisions with Slingshot's initial release.
I got notification fatigue as all my friends blasted photos to everyone on their contact list. Seeing 400+ unseen messages is a little overwhelming, especially when you need to swipe through EVERY photo/video to clear.
I'll download the update with an open perspective. :)
@rrhoover ugh, yeah. The first version of the app was awful and required A LOT of maintenance. This takes the pressure off the user and makes it a lot easier to just share what's up, which is cool.
@ow thanks for the kind words! We've toned notifications down in SS2 to only be for reactions (1:1 messages) and friend joins. However, you can long press on anyone's stack of shots and turn on instant notifications for them if you're super into 'em.
It's a huge change but really came from learnings and seeing how people were using SS1.
Really excited to see this on Product Hunt — big fan @rrhoover.
@wjosephflynn Yo! I'm digging it; it seems like the slight pivot must be a hard choice, but it was certainly a good one in my opinion. Someone on Twitter said the new Slingshot is like "Snapchat stories but with an interface that doesn't make you feel stupid" which resonated with me.
Keep up the cool work!
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