Snapchat Is Letting Users Share Their Real-Time Location With Friends
Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
For those who tell their friends to “text me when you get home” after an outing together, Snap is looking to make it easier to keep track of each other’s whereabouts
On Friday, the Santa Monica-based social media giant announced a new “buddy system”-esque feature that gives Snapchat users the ability to share their real-time location with individual friends on the app. (Snap isn’t allowing users to blast their real-time location to all of their Snapchat friends for safety reasons, as TechCrunch reports.)
Since 2017, Snapchatters have had the option to share their location via the Snap Map feature, but only when they’re using the app. Snap’s new Live Location feature is similar to Apple’s Family Sharing, and allows Snapchat users to share their live-tracked location with friends, even when they’re not using their phones, for anywhere from 15 minutes to up to eight hours.
Snap is launching Live Location as part of a larger partnership with It’s On Us, a nonprofit dedicated to combating sexual assault on college campuses. According to a survey by ADT, roughly one-third of smartphone users (34%) said they felt more safe knowing those they’ve shared their location with can check in on them—with 41% of women saying they felt safer after sharing their location, compared to 26% of men.
It’s been a busy week for new features on Snap’s flagship social media platform, with Snapchat rolling out a new partnership with Ticketmaster on Wednesday and a new revenue-sharing feature for content creators on Monday.
- Snap Unveils Its New AR Glasses and Innovation Lab - dot.LA ›
- Bitmoji Gets an Upgrade as Snapchat Doubles Down on Fashion ... ›
- Ahead of Inauguration Day, Snap and TikTok Embrace Fact ... ›
- Snapchat Launches Breaking News Feature - dot.LA ›
- Snap Unveils Pixy Drone, New AR Shopping Features - dot.LA ›
Decerry Donato is a reporter at dot.LA. Prior to that, she was an editorial fellow at the company. Decerry received her bachelor's degree in literary journalism from the University of California, Irvine. She continues to write stories to inform the community about issues or events that take place in the L.A. area. On the weekends, she can be found hiking in the Angeles National forest or sifting through racks at your local thrift store.
Image Source: Waymo
Image Source: Snap
Image Source: Dodgers 
Image Source: ChatGPT