Facebook Launches Snapchat Competitor Slingshot, for Real This Time

Facebook is ready to take on Snapchat with a new ephemeral messaging app, for the second time.

The social network relaunched Slingshot on Tuesday, an app for sending disappearing photo and video messages similar to those sent via Snapchat.

Users can send photos or videos up to 15 seconds long using Slingshot, and once those messages are viewed and cleared by the recipient, they disappear from the recipient's phone for good. The only catch: Users are required to respond with an image or video in order to "unlock" those they receive. For example, if you receive a message from a friend, you'll need to send a message back to that friend before you can open what they sent you. Read more...