Snapchat, the app that lets you send semi-permanent photos to friends, introduced geofilters on Tuesday. The new feature adds a kind of treasure map-style functionality that slathers filters onto your pictures depending on where you are. So, for example, when you’re at Disneyland, you can plaster a Disneyland filter onto the selfie you took while going down Splash Mountain. The filter isn’t automatically applied, mind you. When you snap a photo, the interface will appear as it normally would. But swipe from left to right, and the badge will pop up. In a video introducing the new feature, Snapchat shows how geofilters work at a coffee shop, the beach, Disneyland and more. It kind of turns your photos into temporary postcards.
Snapchat has just announced “Geofilters,” photo filters that are unlocked only when you’re in a specific place or city. To activate the filters, you just swipe left on your screen once you’ve taken a photo in the app. In a video announcing the feature, you can see filters for a specific coffee shop, Soul Cycle location, Disneyland, and a variety of neighborhoods like Malibu. Disneyland, in fact, is featured very prominently in the video, but a Snapchat spokesperson says that Disneyland, nor any of the other locations, paid to have their filter included in the app. Geofilters, however, seem like a great opportunity for Snapchat if and when it thinks about how it’s going to make money. Snapchat has for some time asked users to enable location services in its app, but until now, it hasn’t been very clear as to why. In an attempt to nip any privacy concerns in the bud, the company says: “Although you’ll need to enable location services for this feature, we don’t store your location.” The company says that as of now, most of the filters have been pegged to locations in Los Angeles and New York City. But, one user found one at Facebook headquarters in Menlo Park, CA. It shows Snapchat’s ghost logo pointing a finger at the user.
