The Snapchat update that everyone is buzzing about

Hello all!

     So today I am going to be talking snapchat's new update. For those of you that do not have snapchat, it is an application that allows you to send photos and videos to friends that "expire" after watching. I put expire in quotes because as we all know, nothing really goes away. In addition to sending things directly to friends, you can put things on your story that are viewable to the audience you select, and expire after 24 hours. At first this app was targeted for teens and young adults that wanted another way to keep in touch with friends. However, now major entertainment and news networks are sharing things on their own snapchat stories that are viewable to everyone. This mass story viewing lead to stories that everyone around the world could add to. So, during New Years there will be a  New Years snapchat story share with everyone in the world. It is really quite interesting to watch.
     Well, snapchat has added another feature called the snapmap. This feature taps into your phones location (as long as you tuned it on) and will show all of your friends where you are down to the exact address. The only way to not be seen is to turn off your location, or go into the snapmap and turn on "ghost mode". You can zoom out and see friends all over the world. Now, a lot of you might be thinking, how is this any different than just viewing their story?  Well, an aspect of snapmap that did not already exist in some form is that you can see things people have uploaded to public stories all over the world! You just double click on any area and you will see snaps.
     This feature of snapchat is really a two-sided coin. On one side, you get to explore all of these areas of the world in real-time from your living room couch. On the other side, if you are not careful, you are sharing your location with everyone which can be dangerous for children using the application. Currently, there are a lot of articles going around about this concern like this one posted by BBC. Others are a bit more comical like people finding their significant others cheating like the one talked about in this Daily Dot article. 
    I was skeptical about this update at first, but when I started playing with it,  I became amazed. This is a piece of technology introduced to Web 2.0 that is seriously fascinating. For any of you that have snapchat, I definitely suggest checking it out.