I don't spend much time with social media. As a result, I've been missing one of the bigger map stories of the year, the growth of Snapchat's Snap Map. Hurricanes Harvey and Irma have brought Snapchat to the forefront of media coverage.
According to
Elite Daily, when Irma made landfall Snapchat received 250,000 submissions within 24 hours. These numbers are way higher than the already high 100,000 daily submissions from Hurricane Harvey. Major media outlets used these pictures and videos in their coverage. The map part of the app is useful to focus on what is happening in specific geographic areas.
The yellow-red colors in the background show where larger concentrations of posts are geotagged. Zoom in to see more Snapchat pictures and videos. Here's an example via
Recode.
Early
previews of the mapping function focused on it as a fun way to send your private data to corporations.
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| Having fun at the club!!! |
It's somewhat ironic then that it has become a way to voyeuristically watch people's lives get torn apart by natural disasters.
NOTE: I tried to get Snapchat on my old phone so I could see for myself and get my own images for this post. Unfortunately I do not have enough storage on my phone to download the app. Sorry that I have to rely on second hand images like the ones above instead of providing original content.
Early previews of the mapping function focused on it as a fun way to send your private data to corporations.
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