So we covered how the Channels work on the Zipper to help you narrow focus your choice of local news and local gossip but what about locations… how are the different from the channels. Although the drop down title is pretty self-explanatory, let\’s get into the the power that Locations add to the Zipper\’s functionality. See, news is just like real estate…location location location.

When you look at any of the main screens in the Zipper local news and local gossip app, you\’ll see the Channel and Location drop down. The default location can be chosen through your settings but it will probably be \”Ur Location\” or \”Ur High School\” since these are common uses. TO understand how the locations work, let\’s take a quick tour through the Zipper itself and what\’s it\’s good for. The Zipper is an app that brings you the information you want to know. Local news and local gossip from everyone to everyone. It\’s that simple. Look, you have your Facebook friends and your Twitter follows but that doesn\’t tell you 99% of what\’s happening right around the corner, the block, or the school you\’re currently sitting in. That\’s a different relationship and the best way to get that info fast is from individual eye-witnesses at the location. They shoot up the info as a Zip, other people confirm/deny/refine the message and popularity keeps it there till no one\’s really interested in it anymore. That\’s the Zipper in a nutshell. Now you can see why Location is important.

The Location allows you to funnel all the information in the Zipper to a size that\’s useful to you. Maybe you really do want to see all the news from your area. Fine. Set the location to \”All\” but what if you only want to know what\’s going on with your High School? Everything from whether Mr. Jones is have a test to where the seniors are meeting after school for big picture. The beauty of building the Zipper as a smart phone app is that it can partially figure out where you are. It will track the news according to your location. That brings up a helpful shift you can make with your Location finder. Maybe you\’re out of town and you want to know what\’s going on downtown in your new city. You can force the location to \”Current Location\” so that it will not reference news from back home. Maybe you want to check back on what\’s going on there while you\’re away. Fine. Switch back to \”Ur Location\” to get back into the local swing of things. You can see how Location becomes a useful tool just with the pre-set options in the system but that\’s only the beginning.

We didn\’t want to just stop there with Zipper. We built the ability to create private locations where you can invite you\’re friends, schoolmates, office workers, etc to join and have a private venue for just your messages. These locations are passcode protected (alpha numeric) so you can control who gets access to this information. As the creator of the Zipline, you can even change pass codes if need be. Just make sure to shoot this new passcode out to the people want to you find it. Finally, privacy in messaging from smart phones is here. No more snooping siblings, parents, and coworkers through your standard text messages. Locations are way to narrow down all the local news and local gossip to specific areas so give it a spin. Zip It!

Author Bio: Dennis Jarvis writes extensively about local news and local gossip smart phone apps.