Instagram launches its messaging app called “Bolt”

Instagram has begun to rollout its first standalone app, called Bolt.  Bolt allows you to send short-lived photo and video messages from mobile devices; this means the message disappears after it has been read.
Bolt will only be rolled out to users in 3 countries - New Zealand, Singapore, and South Africa

According to TechCrunch, here’s how Bolt works:

You sign up for Bolt with your phone number — no Instagram or Facebook account required. It sucks in your phone’s contacts and you can select to pull any of them into your Favorites list. You’re then given the Bolt camera. Rather than a standard shutter button, the faces of all your friends in your Favorites list are shown as a scrollable row across the bottom of the screen. Tapping one of their ugly mugs instantly sends them the photo with a single touch, which is supposedly Bolt’s big value proposition. Tap and hold to send someone a video.

On Bolt you can only share to one person at a time, and have to re-shoot to send to more. There’s no uploading shots from your camera roll.  A few buttons at the top let you switch the selfie mode, turn on your flash, or overlay big white text similar to Snapchat.