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A Snapchat-owned location app just added a leaderboard comparing who stays home the most

A Snapchat-owned location app just added a leaderboard comparing who stays home the most

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Zenly is gamifying social distancing

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Image: Zenly

A Snapchat-owned location-sharing app has created a way to gamify social distancing with a leaderboard comparing who among you and your friends spends the most time at home (via TechCrunch).

The app, Zenly, typically encourages sharing your location for things like meeting up with friends, but going outside to hang out with people might go against restrictions in place that encourage social distancing and help prevent the spread of the novel coronavirus. So, in a twist, Zenly can now show how much you and your your friends aren’t going outside with its new stay-at-home leaderboard.

The leaderboard ranks the five of your friends that are staying home the most — and if you’re staying home as much or more than they are, you’ll be part of that top five. To have a leaderboard show up, you’ll need to add at least friend that has a “home” on Zenly, the company told The Verge after the original publication of this article. Having a “home” in the app may take a few days after you join and give access to your location so the app can figure out your day-to-day patterns and where your home might be.

I wasn’t able to make a leaderboard because I just joined the app today. But here are some screenshots from Zenly of the leaderboard and two other cards that Zenly generates: one showing how much of the day you’ve spent at home and another showing a streak of how long you’ve stayed home:

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Zenly co-founder and CEO Antoine Martin also shared a screenshot of a leaderboard  in this tweet:

Zenly also offers a handy map overlay that can show the number of coronavirus cases in a state or country. When you tap on one of the emoji, it will show the number of confirmed cases and recoveries (though the five or so emoji I clicked on all showed info that was last updated yesterday).

Update March 24th, 3:57PM ET: Added context and screenshots from Zenly.