Snapchat Wants to Slip a Little News Into Teens’ Social Smartphone Time

This month, as millions of Muslims made the annual Hajj to Mecca, Snapchat set up a Live Story around the pilgrimage. Using a geofence that located users in Mecca and the surrounding areas in Saudi Arabia, Snapchat let users submit photos or short videos that its editors then curated into a story it showcased to its users around the world.

While media outlets from around the world covered the Hajj, especially after the deadly stampede last week, Snapchat could take its viewers into places, such as the mosques, that traditional TV crew couldn’t reach.