So, we’ve been at it for a few years now and you might think that when we’re nominated for awards it’s old hat for us, but nothing could be further from the truth. We’re excited each time, like the first time, and such is the case when we saw that we were a Finalist in the 5th Annual Mashable Awards, going head-to-head for the title ‘Most Useful Mobile App’ of the year! We’d be very grateful if you’d take a second to register your support over on the Mashable Awards with a quick click on us in our category. You can sign in with your Twitter or Facebook credentials and have the option to not publish it into your feed, if you don’t want to. Per usual, we’re doling out extra karma points back your way, in gratitude for your effort. Thanks in advance, Wazefolk!

This past weekend, we gathered our top users across Europe for our very first Mega Wazers Meet up – check out a few of our Waze royalty arriving to the event, above. Four Waze team members were joined by over 20 of the most active users in Europe, representing communities in France, The Netherlands, Hungary, Czech Republic, England, Scotland and Italy – including the world’s #1 Wazer, asterix06.

So, why’d we gather our top users together? ‘Cause the Waze driving community is truly the heart of what we do, and it was important for us to hear some face-to-face feedback from the people who know our product the best and spend the most time contributing to their local driving communities.

Overall, it was a great success. We got important insight into what’s on the mind of our top contributors and got a chance to fill them in on what’s going on over here at Waze, as well as our plans for the future. We also saw how important it is for us to maintain direct communication with these top contributors and hope to have other meet-ups, for other communities around the world, in the future.

French user, Jabou, live tweeted the event, so if you’d like to see his tweets, you can search Twitter with the hashtag #wazemeet to see updates from the event. Thanks also to Dave Langley for his great documentation, above and below! More pics found on our FB page, here.

As we’re getting ready to gather ’round the table and count our blessings, now’s an appropriate time to lend a hand to those less fortunate, don’t you think?

Here’s one way to do your part: simply ’Like’ the Waze FB page (if you haven’t already) and ‘Share’ the specific FB post with the above graphic on your wall by clicking the ‘Share’ button on the bottom of the post. From today through to the end of the day on November 24, for each ‘Share’, we’ll donate 25 cents to Feeding America (up to $5,ooo), for the benefit of those who face food insecurity not just on Turkey Day, but every day. Doing your part is as easy as a quick click of the mouse – we hope you guys will join us to help make a difference this holiday season!

Posting this a bit late, but didya catch the clip that our friend, Robert Scobble, posted about us? It’s a great driving demo featuring some behind the scenes Waze folk – Michal on the wheel, Ehud to the left in back, Yael in the middle, and Di-Ann, far right. It’s a bit long, but click on the image above to watch it all and get the full scoop on driving with v 3.0, plus you’ll get a chance to meet some of the people who’re part of the team working to make Waze the best it can be every single day.

And if seeing the faces behind the names gets you feelin’ all warm and fuzzy, and you wanna connect further, good news – Waze is now on Google Plus, so you might want to consider joining us over there. We’re just getting going , but with your participation, it’ll be another good way to stay connected to all things Waze…

So, as you know Waze v 3.0 for iPhone has been out a few weeks and we’ve gotten great feedback from many of you, which is great. There were also some more critical comments…questioning our decision to redesign the client and add a few new features, seemingly at the expense of stabilizing our app’s infrastructure – and we take this feedback seriously, especially since they come from some of our most committed users.

In response, Ehud Shabtai, our co-founder and CTO has written up a post in the Waze forum that addresses these issues and gives a bit of a peek ‘behind the curtain’ as to what’s happening on the more technical side of things. If that’s your bag, make sure to read Ehud’s post, and leave  any feedback you may have. Rest assured, we’re listening to everything that you guys have to say!