Alrighty, now that we have your attention…

Waze has been growing very quickly over the last few months and we need your help to take it to the next level. To this end, we’re asking our users to bring their friends on over to waze, and as a thank you for doing so, the 25 users who bring the most new friends onto waze each week will be put into a raffle – and one lucky person will win an iPad! And we’ll be doing this for four consecutive weeks, so there are a bunch of chances to win.
All you have to do to participate is:

* Make sure you’ve connected waze to Facebook – You can do this by visiting ‘Profile’ under the ‘Settings’ section on waze (iPhone and Android), or from ‘My Dashboard’ on waze.com (other phones), after signing in with your log in information.

* Tell your friends to install waze, enter their Facebook details and drive a mile - In order to qualify, make sure that they drive at least one mile using waze, plus enable their Facebook Connect, too. Note that friends must be BRAND NEW users, as of November 29, 2010. Pre-existing users who register to Facebook Connect won’t be part of your count.

* Recruit, recruit, recruit and stay on top of your numbers – Once your friends enable their Facebook Connect, too, they’ll show up on the ‘friends’ tab of your scoreboard for you to keep a general count of how many new friends you have to your credit. Make sure to take full advantage of your social media networks to get people on board!

Here’s the schedule for the next four weeks – get started ASAP…

* Monday, November 29 – Sunday, December 5 – Winner announced 12/6

* Monday, December 6 – Sunday, December 12 – Winner announced 12/13

* Monday, December 13 – Sunday, December 19 – Winner announced 12/20

* Monday, December 20 – Sunday, December 26 – Winner announced 12/27

Note: As mentioned above, only friends that joined waze during that specific week will be eligible. Existing waze users that you befriend will not be counted. Remember the goal this time around is to grow the Waze userbase!

Any technical questions about how to enable Facebook Connect? As always, feel free to turn to us for help: support@waze.com. Good luck guys!

And now the fine print…

ELIGIBILITY:You must be a 18 years of age or older to enter the Waze Inc. (Hereby “Waze”) contest. CONTEST PERIOD: Waze contest begins at 09:00 EST on November 29, 2010 and ends on December 26, 2010 23:59 EST PRIZE RESTRICTIONS: Each winner is responsible for any applicable taxes. Prizes listed are subject to its general availability on the market. In the event of non-availability on the market, Waze will provide a similar or equal compensation. LIMITATION OF LIABILITY: By participating, participants agree to release, discharge and hold harmless Waze and its partners, affiliates, subsidiaries, agents and their employees, officers, directors, and representatives from any claims, losses, and damages arising out of their participation in this contest or any contest related activities and the acceptance and use, misuse, or possession of any prize awarded hereunder. Waze reserves the right under its sole discretion, to cancel, suspend or modify the terms of the contest, in whole or in part; and the right to disqualify any participant in the event of tempering, unauthorized intervention, fraud, technical failures or any other causes which in Waze sole opinion corrupt or effect the fairness, integrity, legality or proper conduct of the contest. CONDITIONS: This contest is subject to federal, state, provincial, territorial and local laws and regulations. Certain restrictions may apply. Void where prohibited. Waze makes no warranty of any kind, express or implied, directly or indirectly, regarding the prize delivery and Waze is not responsible for prize delivery being late, lost, stolen, damaged, mutilated, incomplete, illegible, misdirected, or postage-due. Participants also agree (a) to be bound by these Official Rules; (b) that the decisions of the judges are final on all matters relating to the contest; and (c) In the event that the selected winner(s) of any prize are/is ineligible or refuses the prize, the prize will be forfeited and Sponsor, in its sole discretion, may choose whether to award the prize to another winner.GOVERNING LAW/DISPUTE RESOLUTION: This contest shall be governed by and interpreted under the laws of the State of California without regard to the conflict of laws doctrine of any jurisdiction; and any disputes, claims or causes of action shall be resolved only in a state or federal court located in the County of Los Angeles, State of California.

Perhaps you’ve noticed a few new options among our voice prompt panoply. We’re now happy to offer ‘English (Elvis)’ and ‘English (Boyband)’ – give them a whirl and tell us what you think. You can switch your audio here: Settings>General Options>Audio.

We’d like to add a few other fun options to the selections – feel free to leave your creative ideas in the comments section below…

On November 11th, Di-Ann attended the SF Appshow and gave a nice little demo, showing off some of waze’s more popular features. Click the above play button to watch her presentation (sorry for the crummy audio quality).

Did you know that approximately 49 million people, including 17 million children, face food insecurity on a daily basis in America? The holiday season is no exception, either. Because of these surprising numbers, we’re very excited to announce our collaboration with foursquare and Feeding America (the nation’s leading hunger-relief charity), to help decrease the number of Americans going hungry this Thanksgiving.

By collaborating with Feeding America and foursquare – not to mention our amazing users! – we aim to help raise awareness to the issue of hunger and make donating to your local food bank easier than ever before…

Starting November 17, waze will prominently display local food bank’s pins on the map, along with a one-click ‘Navigate’ button providing you with direct voice-guided turn-by-turn navigation to each location. And when you get there, make sure to ‘check in’ via our integration with foursquare to draw even further awareness to the issue, as you alert your wider network to your location – and that’s not all, for each ‘check in’,, waze will donate $1 to Feeding America (up to $2,000)!

Users who are not currently connected to their foursquare account via waze can easily connect the two by visiting the settings page in waze.

We have great faith in the goodwill of our users and we hope that you guys take advantage of our platform to get out there and donate this holiday season. You’ll be making a big difference in your community, and at the end of the day, that’s what matters most. Wishing you and yours a happy and festive Thanksgiving!

The people over at the Appstore put together a new section geared towards those traveling home for the holidays and waze was one of the top recommended apps to check out for those hitting the road. Ain’t nothing like a good feature on the Appstore, or any other store, for that matter – it brings all kindsa new users which help to develop your local driving communities out there and that makes us real happy. What about you all? You guys planning on using waze for your commute home for the holidays? Now’s a great time to tell your friends about waze to help them beat the holiday traffic, too. Don’t forget to spread the word!

Jolly good show, wazers – that was a close one! Android and iPhone users, you guys put up a good fight against eachother, but in the end, the winner is iPhone! We did a random drawing of the top 25 road munchers using the iphone platform and picked user “Sketch” - congratulations sketch, you’re the winner of a brand new iPad!

Thanks to all those who participated in the contest, we hope you had a good time out there…and stay tuned to the blog for more opportunities to win in the future…

As you guys know, for the last 2+ months we’ve been running a promo, offering waze users all kindsa cool waze swag, just for bringing at least two new friends onto their scoreboard, but now that we’re about to bring that offer to a close on November 15, we’re upping the ante…

For all waze users who have brought at least 2 new waze users onto their scoreboard since we started out on August 11th, and for those who will do so until November 15 – you’re in the drawing for a brand new iPad! And the more friends you have, the better your chances are to win. 5 friends? 5 entries into the drawing…

Make sure to click on the last blog post here, to find out how to add new friends to your scoreboard, no matter what platform you’re on. If we confirm that you have at least 2 friends, we’ll send you a waze air freshener, and if we confirm that you have five or more, we’ll send you an air freshener and a waze-branded sun shade. (Please allow 6-10 weeks for delivery. We’re a small operation over here…) All those with 2 or more friends are in the running for the iPad.

On November 15th, we’ll close the promotion and conduct the drawing, and on the 16th, we’ll announce the new iPad winner – make sure that you’re in the running!

UPDATE WITH WINNER ANNOUCEMENT…

And the winner is…

User mizter6! Congratulations to you and we hope you enjoy your brand new iPad!

To all others, we’re cooking up a lot – and we mean a lot – of new opportunities for you to try to win an iPad, so make sure to stay tuned to the blog over the next couple of weeks…

Alrighty guys, we’re down to the wire here. Android and iPhone are head-to-head with a relatively small difference between them and with enough effort, it can be either platform’s game. You have until the end of the day on the 10th to go for that final push, wazers…The winning blog + the winning user will be announced on the 11th, here on the blog. Good luck to all!