Facebook reportedly developing Snapchat-rival codenamed 'Slingshot'

Mobile presents one of the strongest avenues of advertising revenue growth because of its potential to create even more targeted marketing campaigns using data from wearable devices or mobile wallets.

Facebook is reportedly planning on entering the video-messaging market with a Snapchat clone that lets users exchange self-deleting video clips.

Developed under the internal codename ‘Slingshot’, the app could launch as soon as this month, according to reports from the Financial Times.

The app would join Facebook’s expanding selection of mobile offerings, with the social network continuing to unbundle features from its main site (such as the standalone messaging app Messenger) as well as acquire other companies such as WhatsApp and fitness-tracker Moves.

If the ephemeral video app does emerge it won’t be Facebook’s first attempt to take on Snapchat. An earlier clone named Poke was developed in December 2012 but failed to attract users and was removed from the App Store.

Facebook also tried to buy Snapchat last year, with co-founders Evan Spiegel and Bobby Murphy reportedly turning down a $3 billion offer from the world’s largest social network.

TapTalk's interface allows for extremely quick excahnge of messages.

Slingshot’s design is reportedly similar to another ephemeral messaging app named TapTalk. The latter, available for iOS and Android, presents users with a miniature photo album of their contacts. Individuals can tap a friend’s face to send them a picture from their front facing camera, or hold down their finger to record a video. When they stop touching the screen the message sends.

With the continual migration of internet users from desktop to mobile devices, messaging apps such as WeChat, Kik and KakaoTalk, have become increasingly threatening to Facebook – as especially as these mobile-only networks tend to attract the younger demographics that are becoming increasingly bored of Facebook.

Snapchat has recently updated their app to include text messaging and video calling, but the app has also run into trouble over its privacy claims. The company is currently under a period of ‘probation’ overseen by the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) after the latter found that Snapchat had misled users as to the ease with which its messages could be saved.

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