Facebook must have really wanted to buy into that Snapchat business. After failing to purchase Snapchat last fall, the social media giant has released their own adaptation of the app, the cleverly-named "Slingshot."

The app, which was made available for download Tuesday, follows somewhat of the same premise as its predecessor, offering a timed "message" sent to another user that disappears after a number of seconds. But when it really comes down to it, just how similar are the two apps?

There are indeed some expected similarities. Slingshot and Snapchat both allow app users to transfer pictures and messages between friends for a limited amount of time. But the differences --- and there are many -- start there.

Slingshot differs in the way that in order to view the photo. The user on the receiving end of Slingshot's "message" has to send a picture as well in order to receive theirs.

It's a big change from Snapchat, who allows for users to receive pictures without having to send one in return. This fundamental difference between the two apps may be big enough of a difference to either make or break the interest in Slingshot.

Slingshot is embracing its ultra interactive qualities. In a blog post announcing Slingshot's birth, one of its creators said, "With Slingshot, we wanted to build something where everybody is a creator and nobody is just a spectator. When everyone participates, there's less pressure, more creativity and even the little things in life can turn into awesome shared experiences."

Critics of Slingshot are taking aim at the alleged 'creativity' that will be forced to take place before viewing a friend's photo. Snapchat is an on-the-go app, which allows users to quickly send and receive photos with no reply. By Slingshot forcing users to send pictures in return, they will take some of the speed away from the app, which could be detrimental to its popularity.

A way in which a user could quickly sidestep taking the time to send a photo in return would be to take a quick picture of the ground or nearest wall. Any picture will do so long as something is sent back to the other user. Given the extra step to "read" the message, there may be a great deal of wall shots 'slung' between friends on Slingshot, should users choose to make the switch.  

Snapchat currently has around 30 million users and is estimated to be worth $3 billion. Slingshot will have its work cut out for it if it wishes to surpass the Snapchat saturated market, a goal they appear to be reaching for.

Since the apps are so similar, a user will presumably will stick with one or the other. The competition of the snap apps may end up similar to using MySpace and Facebook at the same time. And in that battle of the social media giants, Facebook was able to eventually take over the MySpace competition, prevailing with a better user platform.

Only time will tell whether they score a repeat victory, but they may be banking on the mindset of 'out with the old in with the new' that got them to the top in the first place.