Snapchat’s streak of adding new features continues as the photo-sharing social media app has introduced the ability to share your live location with others. This feature will enable a “buddy system” and will allow you to share your real-time location so that others, and by others, Snapchat means friends and family, can keep a track of it.
Live Location Sharing Reaches Snapchat
The new real-time location sharing on Snapchat is similar to WhatsApp’s live location feature and even how the Find My app on iOS works. The Snapchat feature will let you share your location with others ranging from 15 minutes to 8 hours.
To address privacy issues such as stalking, Snapchat has also added the ability to pause location sharing. Plus, it is only available for mutual friends and is not for all people you add on Snapchat. It is also revealed that the feature is switched off by default, and you will have to enable it manually to start real-time location sharing.
In order to get access to it, you just need to tap on a Snapchat friend’s profile and find the new Live Location option. You need to enable it, decide the time period, and it’s done. The live location sharing status will run within the chat itself for the friend to track your location in case he or she wants to ensure you don’t take the wrong route or you reach home safely from a fun night out.
The new Snapchat live-location sharing is an extension of the Snap Map feature, which allows people to know your location. But, this ability was limited to an approximate location and didn’t refresh on its own in the background. Snap Map also allows people to decide when they want to share their location with others.
This feature comes in addition to the ability to change the username, which was recently announced by Snapchat.
In addition, Snapchat has announced that it has collaborated with Its On Us, which is a non-profit organization to help fight sexual harassment on college campuses.
