If a social app starts gaining popularity, you can bet on Facebook either buying it or imitating it. Slingshot (free) is actually the social networking giant's second attempt at a Snapchat-beater. And as with the first one—Poke—it has been met with a collective "meh." If only 23-year-old Snapchat CEO Evan Spiegel had graciously accepted Facebook's $3 billion dollars, Facebook (and we at PCMag.com) wouldn't have to spin our wheels with apps that miss the target, such as Slingshot.

That's not to say that Slingshot is a straight clone of Snapchat. In fact, it doesn't even actually let you chat. It also adds a couple of twists and some clever interface touches. As in Snapchat, what you send in the app (photo or video—but not text) is ephemeral, lasting only as long as it takes the recipient to view it. Slingshot, however, doesn't let you see a shared photo or video from one of your contacts until you send something. This forces reciprocity, which isn't such bad a thing in itself. Nor is it a particularly new idea: This concept debuted (to my knowledge) in the very first crop of iPhone apps, with PhotoSwap. But the procedure can be frustrating if you just want to see a contact's photo.

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Start Slinging
Getting started with Slingshot has one advantage over doing so in Snapchat: The Facebook-created app doesn't insist on having your phone number in order to get going. Snapchat won praise from PCMag for a bold interface that ignored convention. Slingshot borrows some of those design cues with a stripped-down interface: It's basically just a camera viewfinder and inbox, which you access by swiping down.

To shoot, just tap the Shoot button or hold it to film 15 seconds of video. The controls are simple, with only a flash toggle and the word Selfie. Tapping the latter option toggles between front and rear-facing cameras.

Next, you have the option draw on your image, via a brilliantly minimalist interface. Scroll up and down along the right side to select a color, and then left and right to control the size of your digital pen nib. While you're drawing, though, goofy supermarket music plays (which you can fortunately turn off).

You can also add a text caption to the top of the photo; simply holding a finger on the image lets you paste text you've cut or copied from elsewhere. And that's it for embellishment—there's no Instagram-style filters or brightness correction.

Next, on your share page, a pixelated version of your image waits with a greyed-out Sling button next to it. To send your image or video, you have to select one or more contacts from your list below, and then go back up and tap the now-bright-orange Sling text. A clever and cute animation shows the image jumping up and away to the contact.

If someone has slung something at you already, it will appear as locked on the share screen and at the top of the main screen. Tap the user to send your image and unlock their image, which also appears as a heavily pixelated thumbnail. In our testing, we sent several pictures of power adapters and bored-looking selfies simply to unlock the images of others.

Once you unlock a sling, you're offered the opportunity to send a reaction to the picture or video. There's no simple Like option. The screen splits in half, showing your front-facing camera Selfie view to send off a quick reply. Viewing this kind of photo doesn't require the recipient to send something. All of these images—received and sent—disappear once they've been viewed, unless you choose Save my Shots in settings. To save stuff you've been sent, your only option is screen capturing. Snapchat, by contrast, lets you save your own images to your camera roll within the app, but only before you send them.

Slinging Blind
Actually finding people to Sling to is more challenging than we expected. If any of your contacts are already using Slingshot, they automatically appear in the share screen. Scraping your contacts is optional, however. You can send an SMS message to anyone to encourage them to sign up for the service, but they still have to add you. To our surprise, we discovered that very few of our Facebook friends had linked their accounts to Slingshot. This does not bode well for the big blue social network's foray into sexting ephemeral sharing.

If you know your friends' Slingshot usernames, you can simply search for them. Or, as we did in testing, simply type in random letters and Sling images to whomever pops up. It's important to note, however, that there's no real anonymity on Slingshot—you always see usernames. Recipients of these unasked-for images cannot view them unless they reciprocate.

You can long-press and swipe right to hide a sender, but only when they've sent you a locked image. It's a useful feature, but frankly we'd prefer if users were required to authorize each other before Slinging. You won't see a gross image without first sending something to the originator, but simply receiving a slew of unwanted messages is a form of abuse in itself. That said, we received virtually no slings from unknown parties.

A Slingshot in the Dark
The two of us are by no means averse to gimmicks and limitations that give apps focus. We do have some disagreement, however: Michael thinks any photo worth sharing is worth keeping, while Max sees merit in ephemeral image sharing. The real trouble with Slingshot's strictures is that they prevent the app from being fun to use. Getting and giving Likes on Instagram is nice, but it wouldn't be fun if they were mandatory.

The "you show me yours and I'll show you mine" approach makes sense for anonymous services like PhotoSwap or Chatroulette, but when you know your contacts ahead of time it doesn't make sense. It's just an unnecessary barrier to enjoying interactions with the app. Facebook deserves credit for thinking outside the social media box it created, but this awkward app misses the mark—the mark being Snapchat.