Happy Heart Day, Wazefolk! We hope you’re feeling all the good energies on this day (and every day) and get some nice acknowledgment from your honey, if you have one, your good friends, your family, or even just some random beauty that the Universe sends your way…if all else fails, know that we love ya! You guys are truly at the core of all that we do.

Over on our end, we’ve had some super nice acknowledgments lately. One of the nicest was that we were included on this Fast Company list: The World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies! Number 7, in fact, on the list of the 10 top Social Media enterprises – alongside the likes of Facebook, LinkedIn, Tumblr, and other movers and shakers. Many thanks, Fast Company! You sure know how to make an app blush…;-)

Recently, we convened a couple of super-user meet-ups in Parish5 and Palo Alto, CA, bringing together top Wazers from around the world with the intention of connecting them to one another face-to-face (many already knew eachother from the Forums), and seizing the opportunity to glean their invaluable feedback about our product…

With users like ours, it goes without saying that both meetings were a great success, but what surprised us even more was the initiative taken by local Waze communities to create meet-ups of their own!

Just a few weeks ago, 14 Slovak Wazers and 1 from the Czech Republic gathered to discuss all things Waze and came up with a list of feature requests and bugs that they sent over to our attention. Meet up organizer, Wazer guri211, also shared some positive feedback about recent updates such as the 3.0 design and new map editor, which was really nice to hear. And only a few days ago, the Hungarian Wazer community had a small meet-up, set up by Wazer Wroadd, with the intention of organizing a larger meet-up with Waze staff in Budapest sometime in May.

Without getting too corny, you guys never cease to amaze us. We love the way a few super committed Wazers have organized to bring users together in their communities, and we want the trend to continue! If any of you out there want to bring a Wazer meet-up to your area and can bring together a dozen or more local Wazers, we’d love to send one or two of our staff people out to share some behind-the-scenes info and hear what you guys have to say. If it sounds like something you’d like to do, don’t be shy, make it happen! We really enjoy the chance to get out and meet you guys…

Hey Wazers-

Big day, big news, and big updates for Waze on iOS! Today we’re happy to launch Waze 3.1 with new sharing features for all you procrastinators and leave-laters. Now you can let anyone know via text or email that you’re running late, along with your current location, ETA, and destination!! We’ve also brought back the newly redesigned navigation list– Yep- just goes to show, good things come to those who waze..I mean wait.

We’re also testing our new-hands free system in the US and Canada, so be sure to check out the new magic wave for all your traffic reporting needs, by voice!

There are also a ton of stability issue fixes, bug fixes, and general things you’d expect in any new version.

Check it out in the Appstore, and remember to rate it again, as we have to start all over every time we do a new launch.

Thanks guys-

Happy Wazing!

Wanna acknowledge someone special this Valentine’s Day with a simple gesture that doesn’t cost a lot of $? We’ve got your back, Wazers! With this in mind, we’ve prepared some coupons for you to share on the Facebook wall of those nearest and dearest to you. To do so visit the ‘Valentine’s Day Coupons for your Honey!‘ album on our Facebook page and select the  the image you like best. Make sure to click where you’d like to share it on the drop down menu at the top of the pop up and the click the share link below the image to do just that. Go ahead, make someone’s day! (By the way, in addition to English, the coupons are also available in French, Spanish, Italian and Hebrew.)

And in the app itself, pretty soon you’ll notice red roses (5 pts), red heart balloons (3pts) and pink heart balloons (2 pts) scattered around the map in honor of the holiday. Munch as many as you can to rack up a few extra V-Day bonus points, and drive to where you need to be with a little Love-on-the-brain, as you go. And even after you get there…