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Facebook shutters Slingshot and other Creative Labs apps
Facebook isn't throwing in the towel when it comes to experimentation, but it has shuttered the project that sought to encourage it. Three apps born from its Creative Labs have been pulled from their respective app stores and the website for the initiative itself is no more. Creative Labs began as a way to encourage experimentation among the social network's employees through hackathon-type sessions, and it led to the development of Slingshot, Rooms and Riff. Slingshot is perhaps the most recognizable of the three for its attempt to take on Snapchat in the realm of ephemeral messaging. Facebook says that since those apps launched, it has pulled features from each into its core Android and iOS app.
Facebook Riff has you making videos with your friends' help
No, Facebook isn't done experimenting with mobile apps yet -- meet Riff, a just-launched app for Android and iOS that has you building collaborative videos. You start by recording a short clip (under 20 seconds) and giving it a topic. After that, your friends can tack on their own videos based around that theme. For example, you can start a "what I do for a living" compilation to find out what all your friends are working on. There's definitely the potential for pranksters to ruin the whole thing, but Facebook lets you either delete individual clips (if you're the creator) or report a whole video if it's going horribly off-track.
