Hey Wazers outside of the US – We know you guys wish you had stuff going on like the Nintendo promo in your areas, too – and, no doubt about it, we’d love to bring you things like this, as well. The thing is, this was a promotion in specific support of Nintendo’s 3DS US launch, so there was nothing to work with outside of the US, but you are not forgotten! All of our users matter to us, and we just ask that you bear with us as we scale up to form the kinds of meaningful global partnerships that will enable us to bring more fun promotions like the one below to all wazers on planet Earth – and some beyond, but we’ll get to that later…In the meantime, we’ve got something good coming up in mid-April, so stay tuned to the blog for your chance to participate, and until then, have any plans this weekend? Why not join in on the Waze Video Demo contest for your chance to win an iPad2? We say go for it!
Good news everyone! No, we haven’t figured out how Nutella tastes so good on EVERYTHING– that’s a mystery for the ages. BUUUUT we’re doing one better!
We’re giving all you US wazers a chance win the new Nintendo 3D handheld gaming system, the 3DS, this weekend! How you say? Well, some of you may remember this awesome stunt by an anonymous Portland street artist a few years back:
Great for bikers, but drivers weren’t as lucky. Well, that all changes NOW! Starting Saturday night, March 26th and running through Monday, March 28th, registered wazers in the US can all experience & play the Waze | Nintendo mini-game. AND WIN!
How to Enter the Contest
1. Download & open the FREE Waze app for your iPhone or Android
2. Register your Waze profile (you must be a registered user to win!)
3. Once an hour, Mario™ will appear on the map – When you see him, tap him!
4. Tap “Navigate” to follow Mario and route to your nearest Nintendo launch event and collect mushrooms and coins along the way!
5. Collect the final power-up star to be automatically entered into the drawing for a chance to win a Nintendo 3DS™ system, video games, and more!
6. Head inside to the launch event and check out the new Nintendo 3DS in action!
QUESTION!!
What if there is no Nintendo launch event near me?
Anywhere else in the US you will see Nintendo road goodies! Collect 3 of them to be entered to win!
You may also send an email to mhk@waze.com
Prizes
Winners will be contacted by email by April 5th, 2011and randomly selected from a single pool of winners to receive one of the following:
We will be giving away:
5 Nintendo 3DS™ video game systems (suggested retail value $249.99 ea)
45 Software titles (suggested retail value $39.99 ea)
50 Pieces of Nintendo merch (suggested retail value $14.99 ea)
What the Contest Will Look Like
So good luck out there! Go and finally play the real-life mario driving game you always wished existed!
Contest Fine Print
NO PURCHASE OR PAYMENT OF ANY KIND IS NECESSARY TO ENTER OR WIN.
ELIGIBILITY: You must be a US resident, 18 years of age or older to enter the Waze Inc. (Hereby “Waze”) contest. CONTEST PERIOD: Waze contest begins at 09:00 PM EST on March 26, 2011 and ends on March 27th, 2011 11:59 PM PST 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 New York, New York. RESTRICTIONS: All taglines, essays, pictures, videos and any accompanying materials (hereby “Materials”) submitted must be your original work, must not have been entered in any other contest or submitted to any publication or organization. Any Materials not in compliance with these Official Rules, as determined by Waze in its sole discretion, will be void. By submitting the Materials, you hereby grant permission for the Materials to be posted on other websites. You agree that Waze is not responsible for any unauthorized use of Materials by third parties. Waze does not guarantee the posting of any Materials. MEDIA ACTIVITIES: a. By submitting Materials, you acknowledge and agree that Waze, as the sole owner of the Materials (including all rights embodied therein), has the unqualified right, to edit, modify, display, copy, make derivative works from, distribute, and otherwise use the Materials and all elements thereof, including without limitation the names or statements of any persons embodied therein, in any and all Media Activity now known or hereafter devised, worldwide in perpetuity. Such use may be with or without attribution to you and does not require any compensation, notification, permission or approval from you or any third party. b. By accepting a Prize, you grant Waze and its affiliates the right to use your name, voice, statements, city and state, location, photograph, image, in any and all promotional, advertising, or media activity or any other promotional, advertising or media materials now known or hereafter devised (collectively, “Media Activity”), worldwide, in perpetuity, without additional compensation, notification, or approval. Sponsor: Waze Inc. 240 Hamilton Ave, Palo Alto, CA 94301
Hey Wazers – That’s right, it’s time for another contest and we’re upping the ante on this one by giving away 3 iPad2s! Want one of ‘em there in your hands? Here’s how…
This time around, we’re asking you to turn the cameras on yourselves – with the help of a tripod or a good friend, of course. We’re looking for you to create your very own waze demo.
Creating a demo is super easy. To get started, say hi, feel free to tell us your name or username, and say a few words about what you like most about waze. Then, before you start driving, cover these basics:
* Show the map, traffic, and other wazers nearby
* Browse through the live events
* Find an address and check out alternative routes
Then, you’re ready to hit the road. For this part, make sure you get a good, close-up shot of the app interface and walk us through your daily experience in the car, using waze. Some things you’ll want to make sure to include are:
* Driving in Navigation mode
* Filing a road report
* Pointing out other wazers on the road around you
* Capturing live prompts about hazards or heavy traffic ahead, if you can manage to catch one
* Arrival at your destination
But don’t feel limited to this list above. If you like groups, the scoreboard, ping-a-wazer, or any of the other, more fun features, feel free to point them out, too. Just make sure you’re not in motion when doing so. And while driving, be sure to provide a little bit of commentary on your experience up to this point wazing out there on the open roads.
A few other points worth noting…
* Ideal length: 3-5 minutes +/-
* Language: Your native language is actually preferred – does NOT need to be in English!
There are a few user-generated waze demos on YouTube that you can use for inspiration, but feel free to get funky with it and do some nice editing to make your submission stand out from the rest. The last day to submit your video is April 8, after which all of us at Waze HQ will pick the top finalists, for the community to vote on the following week. Waze’s community of users will select the three top submissions, after which we’ll send you demo contest winners your well-earned iPad2s.
So, you in? Click here to submit your video. It’s a great way to show off your love and knowledge of our little app, and maybe win a great prize at the same time…Good luck to all!
And the winner is…Maciej Trębacz of Poland! Congrats, Maciej, you’re the winner of a brand new iPad 2. Once again, many thanks to the over 500 of you who participated by submitting your own ideas – there were some great ones, but the people have spoken and ‘Driving is fun again’ is the winner. Keep your eyes on the blog later this week for our next competition for your chance to snag your own iPad 2…this next time around, we’re giving away three!
Have you ever wondered what it would look like if we compiled all the hazards and traffic you report in and rendered them into one, fine-lookin’ video? Well considered your wonder sated. Today, we’re pumped to show you what one day’s worth of traffic looks like in Los Angeles-
Watch out for the 7AM commuting madness! Big props to GAFFTA & Nik Hanselmann for actualizing this sweet visualizing.
We’d like to thank all of you, our amazing community, for making this kind of visualization possible with your relentless contributions! We owe it all to you!
Also a huge thank you to all of you who came out to see Waze @ SXSW! See you next year!
This year, we’re pleased to announce Waze’s maiden presence at the event, where your community geographer and frequent blog contributor, Diann Eisnor, has been invited to speak. For those of you lucky wazers out there who are are attending SXSW, check out Diann’s talk, Tapping the Crowd to Remap the World, whichwill take place tomorrow, Tuesday March 15th @ 12:30 – Ballroom A, Austin Convention Center (ya, that’s right, the big one!)
Feel free to bring video cameras, pompoms, and any other ra!-ra! you deem suitable for Diann.
Looking forward to seeing you there!
ALSO
Diann just spoke at SIGNAL, the pre-SXSW conference. Check out her talk online here
Well, that was impressive! More than 500 of you submitted your ideas for the new waze tagline and though it was super-tough for us to widdle the options down to just ten finalists, after a company-wide poll we managed to get there and are happy to move into the voting stage of the competition…click here to make your voice heard!
Voting starts today and goes through March 20th – and you’ll be able to vote once per day, so make sure to come back and vote for the line that you’d like to see win.
And just to set expectations, there’s a chance that we may not officially implement the winning tagline, but we still want to see which one you guys think is best and reward that user for their great idea. Make sure to vote at least once, and feel free to leave comments on your favorite entry, and why you think it should win…
A big thanks to all of you for your participation!
We can’t really stress it enough: your feedback means the world to us. It lets us know what we’re doing right, it shows us what areas need improvement and it gives us ideas we never even had ourselves – in short, it’s essential for making Waze the absolute best it can be. That’s why Fej, our VP of Community and Operations, and Yael, our VP of Product and Marketing, made a quick visit to Paris and Milan this week to meet with a few users we picked at random to hear more about what you guys think, face-to-face. While this was a short trip and we were only able to connect with a relatively small number of you, we really want to know more. Have ideas or feedback that you’d like to share with us about the product? Drop Yael a line at yael@waze.com and let us know what’s on your mind!
“Way to Go” has served us well over the last few years, but we’re ready for a new tagline, so we’re turning to you to see what you guys got for us…
We’ll be accepting your submissions March 1-11, after which, we’ll pick 10 finalists for the public to vote on. The winner will get a brand-spankin’-new iPad 2 (the one coming out on March 1!), and the 9 other finalists will get some fun waze goodie bags.
Timeline: Submission period March 1-11, Waze judging March 11-14, Public voting March 14-20, Winner announced on March 21!
So…how to get going on dreaming up waze’s next tagline?
A good place to start is with product benefits – think about what waze does for you and fashion that into a little slogan.
Or, think about what differentiates waze from the competition and use that idea as a base for your tagline.
You can also focus on the ‘pain point’ of traffic, and how waze provides a solution, the way drivers collaborate together, or maybe think about what might compel others to check waze out if these few words were all that they knew about what we have to offer…
Whatever method you go with, make sure to keep the tone consistent with how we like to think of our brand: informal, friendly and (if we can be so bold…) terribly cute
Please note that there is only one entry, per Facebook profile, and that you should put the same text for both the ‘Title’ and ‘Tagline’ sections, however, we’ll only be looking at the ‘Tagline’ section.
A couple more tips:
Try to communicate one simple idea, clearly
Opt for just a few words – probably about 3-5, or so
Make sure your submission is in English
Here are a few keywords to get your creative juices going:
Traffic, Navigation, Social, Collaboration, Fun, Crowdsourced, Useful, Road, Free, Travel, Commuting, Daily Driving, Route,GPS, Solution, Rerouted, Working together, Drivers, Community
To submit your tagline, click here. Good luck, you guys! Hope you come up with something great…
(Oh, and if you’re not familiar already, a tagline is a memorable slogan – usually made up from just a few words – that sums up the tone and premise of a brand or product, ie: Nike’s “Just do it”.)
Hello San Francisco/Bay Area Wazers! DEVO-lution is here and will take over the city for one amazing night, just for YOU! The show will take place at the beautifully historic Warfield Theater on March 18th, doors open at 8pm. What’s that you say, you want to go to the show? Well perfect, all you have to do munch as many DEVO road goodies as you can from today until March 15th. Whoever munches the most wins!! The winner will be announced on March 16th so be sure to check your email and or this blog with further instructions of how to get your pair of well earned tickets. WHIP-IT SanFrancisco and start Wazing around for your chance to experience history in the making…..DEVO live! **UPDATE** We have a winner!!! Way to go all you Wazers out there who played for your chance to win! There can only be one winner and that lucky person is- Timothy Dean!!! Please email melissa@waze.com to confirm you received this and I will let you know how to pick-up your tickets. Thanks everyone! Keep your eyes peeled for other exciting things on the way!
