Snapchat's newest feature is a game changer for concerts

Snap debut "Crowd Surf" with Lorde's performance at Outside Lands.
 By 
Kerry Flynn
 on 
Snapchat's newest feature is a game changer for concerts
Lorde's performance at Outside Lands in San Francisco was used for Snap's first public test of Crowd Surf. Credit: TIM MOSENFELDER/Getty Images

Having FOMO about not seeing Lorde at Outside Lands? Well, Snapchat just released a feature that could help alleviate your melodrama.

Called Crowd Surf, the feature connects snaps based on their audio and stitches them together in an attempt to give a near-seamless look at a live event from multiple perspectives.

The new feature is already live within select Our Stories curated by Snapchat, with Lorde's recent performance as the prime example. Users can see different perspectives of the same footage by clicking a new button in the right corner of their mobile screen.

Because of the audio connection, which Mashable has learned is a proprietary machine learning technology built in-house by Snap's Research team, Snapchat users can essentially change the camera angle without losing the context of what's being shown.

Snapchat first showed Crowd Surf off Monday with footage from Lorde's performance at Outside Lands. It's pretty dope for watching a concert or a speech where the audio is crucial. But it does rely on there being several people taking quality snaps at the same time during the event—which Snapchat did have from fans watching Lorde.

Users don't get to see a full song (though theoretically if there were enough Snaps you could), but certain parts—in this instance the opening to Lorde's "Green Light"—let users jump through a variety of perspectives through out the crowd.

With Crowd Surf, Snapchat will hope to bolster its Stories feature so that users submit to them more and also spend more time watching them. That's good for Snap Inc. The more time users spend with Stories, the more likely they'll be served an ad, which contributes to the majority of Snap's revenue.

While Facebook has copied the Stories product across its platform, it hasn't embraced editorial curation like Snapchat has. That doesn't mean Facebook couldn't do it in the future on the Facebook app or in Instagram, where Stories have been a major success.

Crowd Surf will be available in select event coverage, according to a Snap spokesperson.

This update isn't the first time Snapchat has tried different camera angles in Stories. A now-defunct feature called Story Explorer let Snapchat users swipe up to see more snaps of the same moment. These were linked based on location and time and did not detect audio. Now, Snapchat's curation team is using all three.

Since Story Explorer was pulled in November 2016, Snapchat has been creating way more Stories than ever before. Now instead of just being available within Snapchat Discover, users can find them sorted by location in Snap Maps and sorted by topic in Search.

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Kerry Flynn

Kerry Flynn is a business reporter for Mashable covering the tech industry. She previously reported on social media companies, mobile apps and startups for International Business Times. She has also written for The Huffington Post, Forbes and Money magazine. Kerry studied environmental science and economics at Harvard College, where she led The Harvard Crimson's metro news and design teams and played mellophone in the Band. When not listening to startup pitches, she runs half-marathons, plays with puppies and pretends to like craft beer.

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