Snapchat introduced a feature on Tuesday that gives you information about the location of Snaps shared in public Stories, marking a fundamental shift to making its ephemeral videos more interactive.
To access the new Context Cards, users swipe up on Snaps that say “more” at the bottom. This gives them additional contextual information about where the videos or photos were taken.
For example, if your friend Snaps from her favorite restaurant, you’ll be able to swipe up on her Story to see reviews, menus, hours of operation, and other important info. Context Cards will even let you launch third-party services, like requesting an Uber or Lyft or reserving a table using an online booking service.
The interface will feel familiar to anyone who has used Google Maps or Google Now. A series of cards will show up on your screen, each showing important details about the destination in question. The first card will include basic info, like the name of the location, its review score, and a photo caption, followed by more specific info and actions. Each card will differ depending on the venue and the amount of information available.
Snapchat posted a promo video to give you a better idea of how it all looks.
Don’t worry, your Snaps won’t start revealing your location to everyone. The cards will only include Snaps tagged with the company’s on-demand Geofilters and those that are posted to the public “Our Story” feed.
Snapchat has struggled to grow its user base as social media giants Facebook and Instagram steal its more popular features. Its new venue and business discovery tool could be reason enough for its core users—people between the ages of 12 and 24—to stick with the app and even bring others onboard.
“With Context Cards, Snaps have become the visual starting point for learning more about the world, empowering our community to get more information about anything that catches their eye,” the company wrote in a blog on Tuesday.
For Snap, Context Cards are a golden opportunity to produce a new revenue stream by making money from partnerships and businesses. Snap already partnered with Gwyneth Paltrow’s Goop, TripAdvisor, Foursquare, and Michelin, and integrated ride-hailing giants Lyft and Uber as well as reservation sites OpenTable, Resy, and Bookatable. Snap said its list of partners will grow so its users can perform more actions straight from the cards.
The Context Cards feature is available on iOS and Android in the U.S., Canada, U.K., Australia, and New Zealand.
