Snapchat has shown off many different slices of life around the world in its ‘Stories’ feature, but something interesting popped up in the story for Los Angeles. It appears the startup has a ‘Breaking News’ filter capability.
Whoa, breaking news filters in #LA @Snapchat story. Wonder if @liahaberman saw this yet… pic.twitter.com/GhkGrHfQDp
— Jeremy Lowe (@jeremyElowe) October 14, 2015
We’ve reached out to Snapchat, and will update this story with a better idea of what’s going on.
On Monday, the company confirmed to Deadline that it was spinning down its original content channel. Currently, it is focusing on content created by users and partners to power its ‘Discover’ feature.
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[UPDATE]: Still no word from Snapchat, but a comment from TNW reader Jen Shungu indicates that Snapchat may be deploying this filter based on real-time geolocation, similar to when the company offers something like a custom ‘Coachella’ filter for those snapping at the famous California music festival.
If true, this means that Snapchat is creating current-events style filters to help its users contextualize eyewitness video or photos of well-known events happening in a specific area of a city.
h/t to Lia Haberman, who alerted us to the feature.
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