A great new version went live a couple of hours ago, and in it you’ll notice minimal UI changes but a few great new functionalities.

Here’s what it includes:

A contributors scoreboard

Finally! The scoreboard serves to put your points in context. With it you’ll see how you stack up against others in your state/country – and worldwide – according to rank and points.

You can view a daily updated status report, showing top contributors for the current week, or an overall aggregated view. What’s cool is that it shows trends and mobility:  top contributing users in your state/country, plus who’s going up or down in rank.

As a global community, the part we like the best about the new scoreboard is the world view, where you’ll be able to see the top contributors worldwide. Note, however, that the initial release still hasn’t merged user databases, so the ‘All’  view won’t include the US and Canada for those outside of those countries, and for those in the US or Canada, the ‘All’ section will consist of the US and Canada only.  As you know the points system is new, so if find anything wrong with your points let us know. We hope to merge the user base data bases soon and provide a unified ‘World’ view. We’ll also add other cool functionalities in next version, so stay tuned!

Personalized alternative routes

Since waze is geared towards commuting and everyday driving in places you already know, we think that the ’standard’ system-calculated routes don’t quite cut it. You already know the different alternative routes for getting to work or home, and you have your specific little reasons why they are YOUR preferred routes, not necessarily the fastest or shortest. The question you usually are asking yourself at the start or close of the day is which one is best right now, right?

So, we’ve introduced personalized alternative routes. Waze will learn the different routes you take to frequent destinations and will tell you which one is most optimal at any given moment. Until waze learns your preferred routes, or if you are driving to non-frequent destinations, waze will show you the  alternative routes,  based on real time traffic,  which is also cool, but not as cool as the personalized ones

How can you make sure waze learns your routes quickly? Well, first off, it takes two to three times traveling each route for waze to learn it. Make sure you start waze and program in your destination point before you start the drive. As you can tell this is a pretty complex feature, and it may take a bit of time to fully mature, so please bear with us. And as always, your feedback is essential. Please leave any thoughts or questions you might have in the comments section, or email alpha@waze.com.

Tell A friend

Now wazers on iPhone can tell their friends about waze with a convenient email, ready to send to your contacts. Click the arrow on the bottom right of your screen, then the small envelope, to enter your friends’ email addresses.