Photo Credit: Joey Petersen
“…and the feature I really like is how It allows an individual to update the app with newly developed streets. It shows me the Waze to all my new favorite places!”
Greg Petersen smiled as he showed us the Waze app on his phone. “How long do you think until I get 1 million points?”
“If everyone is moving forward together, then success takes care of itself.” —Henry Ford
Waze has long understood that collaboration is the key to progress. With a collaborative effort in mind, we are ecstatic to announce a co-marketing program with Zipcar, the worlds’ leading car sharing network.
Waze has always been about saving you time, but now, you can save gas $, too!
Welcome to Waze Version 3.2, where you can find the cheapest gas station around you or along your route, navigate there with one tap, and update its current gas prices in real-time for the community.
But it gets even better! Waze has teamed up with gas partners, and now at participating stations, you can take advantage of special deals on gas, for Wazers only. Hooray!
How do you take advantage of Wazer-only gas deals? Look out for the gas stations on the map and in the search list that show a small $ icon – this means that discounted gas is available for Wazers at this location. Simply tap on the station and hit the ‘get coupon’ button. Then show the coupon to the clerk at the station.
As of today, nearly 2,000 stations in the US are offering Wazers 5-10 cent discounts per gallon on gas. We’ll be adding more special promotions state by state over the coming months, so if you don’t currently see any nearby, hang on for a little while, we’ll be coming to your region very soon!
Gas features are available right now in the US only. But don’t worry – we’ll be gradually rolling these out globally too. We’re working on lining up gas partners around the world, and in a few days we’ll enable an ‘add gas station’ feature in the map editor, so wherever you are around the world, you can update the map with the local stations around you. Our global community is on board in helping us get this done as quickly as possible, so be on the look out for gas features coming soon in your country!
We’ve built in a few other new features that we think you guys will find really useful:
We’re pretty excited about this version, and we hope you’ll find it super helpful too. Leave us some comments below and let us know what you think! Happy Wazing everyone, and see you on the road 
Wanna become a Waze gas parter? Sign up here!
Here at Waze, we’re used to hearing about spectacular innovations by the ingenious minds that use our app around the world. But it’s not often that we get to witness that level of ingenuity. Enter the Hungarian Wazers’ Meetup in May.
The family-friendly event, organized by Wazer Peter Zsak (aka Wroadd), spotlighted the first-ever Waze telemetry car:
Developed by Hungarian power-Wazer Pulsarxp, the car is used for editing purposes. Pulsarxp creates “update requests” and then reviews the drive by comparing the Waze route with the pictures shot while driving.
A detailed editors booklet, created by Hungary Wazer Szikra, was also distributed at the Meetup:
The Hungary Waze Meetup began with the country’s locally produced Waze musical anthem. More than 30 Wazers came out for the all-day event featuring lectures, games and competitions and a tablet giveaway by event sponsor Huawei. Waze VP of Operations and Community Fej Shmuelevitz was also in attendance.
Of course, no Waze Meetup would be complete without some custom schwag.
Hungarian Wazers discussed introducing house numbers, a feature to indicate in-app metro user activity (currently available in the U.S) and more detailed hazard reporting as areas they’d like to see updated in the next app release.
Peter (Wroadd) has seen the Waze Hungary community grow from 6 very enthusiastic users in October 2010 to a thriving community of Wazers and editors today. He and the top Hungarian editors meet once a week, have a large social media following and their own mailing list where projects and ideas are circulated.
The community unites around one goal: to get Waze into every car in Hungary.
Currently, the Hungary community has two upcoming Meetups slated for fall. The first is an event for the geeks which will feature presentations and workshops on editing and more. The second Meetup will be held for the region’s Top Wazers, from Hungary and neighboring countries.
Do you want to see a Waze Meetup held in your area?
Matt busy at a board meeting.
Bratislava’s power-Wazers joined forces again last week to discuss all things Waze. The group reviewed suggested features and tweaks, errors and bugs, and impressively, a guerrilla campaign to attract more Waze users across their local city.
The DIY campaign is made up of catchy bumper stickers with promotional text in Slovak. The stickers, printed in a2 and a3 formats, were distributed, and pasted, at the Meetup.
Organized by Tomas Gursky (aka guri211), the 20 Wazers in attendance toasted to fantastic growth across their region. Since their last Meetup in January, user growth has increased 100%, with 80% growth in Prague alone.
Useful tools created by the Slovak community include their very own Status Page, which Gursky created in April 2012. Additionally, Czech Wazer fotrik and Gursky collaboratively produced a tool that measures user activity and growth in the region.
Gursky, the owner of a VOIP company, is one of the first editors and area managers from Bratislava. Without an RDS-TMC system in place, Wazers in Slovakia have come to rely upon the app for all their traffic needs. As a result, Gursky has stated, the Waze maps are more accurate than any other sources’. This is partly thanks to the work of long-time dedicated editors, such as Wazers foxitrot and shalafi, who were also in attendance at the Meetup.
Discussion points included a desire for better map protection tools after several reports of map vandalism. Additionally, validated house numbers, problems with turn restrictions and the use of better aerials all ranked high on the list of problems Slovak Wazers would like to see improved.
However with such a strong map already in place, the Wazers shifted their attention to one goal by the meeting’s end: gaining more users through the DIY campaign and other means of outreach.
Would you paste a Waze bumper sticker on your car?
A little while back we released a completely revamped version of the Waze map editor, and you veterans are sure to have taken note of the big changes implemented. But for those of you who’ve been thinking about becoming map editors, but have no previous experience, this one’s for you. We’ve produced the video tutorial above to teach you all you need to know before you dive into the world of map editing.
In the clip above, you’ll learn:
It’s a pretty comprehensive overview, but the best place to get the info you need is on the Waze Forum, where you can connect with other experienced editors and learn from them. In many areas around the world, local editors are working together to divvy up the work in their region, so see what’s going on in your area and how you can be a part of it.
Even if you take the solo route, map editing a great way to have a super big impact in your local driving communities, plus earn tons of bonus points at the same time. Even just one edit can improve routing for hundreds, if not thousands, of Wazers nearby, so get out there and make your mark!
© 2006-2013 Waze Mobile. All Rights Reserved.
