According to a recent report by Bloomberg, popular ephemeral messenger Snapchat is now busy bulking up in terms of resources and funding that could help the company raise its value to a whopping $10 billion.
With this in mind, it’s undeniable that Snapchat is now the ephemeral app to beat. Just recently, Facebook unveiled a similar competitor app called Slingshot on iOS. And this week, another heavy weight in the social networking space is introducing its own app to compete with Snapchat.
Instagram has just made available its Bolt app to select iOS and Android users in Singapore, South Africa and New Zealand. The app claims to offer a no fuzz method of sharing photos with a user’s contacts coupled with Instagram’s filter-rich interface.
The app doesn’t require a Facebook or Instagram account, but users are required to sign up using their phone numbers in order to sync their contacts into the app.
For now, Instagram hasn’t mentioned when it plans to roll out the app outside the three countries mentioned above once they have figured out how to properly distribute the app without compromising on user experience.
