Pokemon GO! buddy system is now live

It was rumored a while back that a new buddy system was coming to Pokemon GO, and now it's been officially released.  The buddy system is a way to earn candy for Pokemon while they walk along with you.  To set a Pokemon to be your buddy, you have to tap your portrait icon in the lower-left corner of the screen, then touch the triple line icon in the lower-right, choose "Buddy", then pick your Pokemon.  Each Pokemon will require you to walk a certain distance with it to earn any candy.

This is useful to help earn candy for Pokemon that you don't normally find in your area.  What I find hilarious is that while Magikarp takes the most candy to evolve (400 to evolve into Gyrados), you only need to walk 1 kilometer to earn a candy, as opposed to other Pokemon who need more.  You'd think that the harder to evolve Pokemon would need longer walks...then again, you try walking a fish that just flops about.