Nice little shout out from the folks over at Gizmodo Australia, who’ve listed us as one of their ‘Apps of the Week.’ Here’s what they had to say about us, below. We’ve never been called a ‘light-hearted navigation app’ before, but we like it! Hee hee

“Waze, the free, light-hearted turn-by-turn navigation app, just got its upgrade to 2.0, and it’s a more viable replacement for the Navigons and Telenavs of the world than ever. In addition to being generally snappier and shinier, Waze 2.0 adds a neat group feature for organising carpools and a system of rankings and achievements, you know, for making your commute fun. Wonderfully free.”

In today’s Technology section of the New York Times, our CEO, Noam Bardin, gives his response to AT&T’s annoucement that they will be discontinuing unlimited data plans.

In addition to being featured in the article’s photo (nice shoes, Noam!), there are also some choice quotes highlighting how this decision will effect app developers, like waze.

“What created this lively app world we are in was the iPhone on one hand, and unlimited data plans on the other,” says Noam. “If people start thinking about how big a file is, or how fast an application is refreshing, that will be a huge inhibitor.”

Click here to read the full article.

Robert Scoble’s recent piece for TechCrunch, “Location 2012: Death of Information Silos,” is an interesting read that namechecks waze a few times in it’s look forward into the future of LBS services. Take a moment and click here to read the full article.

Nice one! Yesterday, Mashable posted a great feature profiling 5 creative startups that use crowdsourcing at their heart, and guess who was listed as number one out of the five? Waze! Here’s what author, Sarah Kessler, had to say about us:

Traffic jams are one place where you can count on people having unexpected free time. Instead of sitting idly, Waze allows users to report traffic problems to other app users.

Even when out of a jam, just having the app open adds map and traffic information. The company creates its maps by tracking GPS on users’ phones. It allows other users in the area to see when traffic slows or if somebody reports an event — like an accident, construction, or speed trap — that might affect a specific route.

Traffic jams are one place where you can count on people having unexpected free time. Instead of sitting idly, Waze allows users to report traffic problems to other app users.

Even when out of a jam, just having the app open adds map and traffic information. The company creates its maps by tracking GPS on users’ phones. It allows other users in the area to see when traffic slows or if somebody reports an event — like an accident, construction, or speed trap — that might affect a specific route.

Click here to read the full article.

We had a little feature in the Automobile section of the New York Times blog area today, and more than a nice little write up, it tickled us that the journalist name-checked Shorty-CM, one of waze’s top power users (and his 178718 points). Welcome to your 15 minutes of fame, Shorty! If you’d like to read the full piece, click here.

Hey now, not too shabby!

USA Today profiled waze today as a ‘Best in Class’ app. Here’s a ‘reprint’ of our nice little feature, found on the left hand column of the main article: 

“Waze (Waze, free), a community-based turn-by-turn navigation system. A clever way to get real-time traffic alerts based on input from others using the same app. “Every now and then an app wows us, and this is one,” Sawyers says.”

We love us some mainstream exposure like this. Hope it brings a new batch of users to the driving communities in your area!

Ian White, the CEO of Urban Mapping, gathered a very compelling panel for his block at this week’s Where 2.0 conference in San Jose – Peter ter Haar, the Head of Products for the UK’s national mapping agency, Tim Trainor, the Head of Geography at the Bureau of Census within the US Government, Steve Coast, the Founder of OpenStreetMap and our very own, Noam Bardin, CEO of waze. Prior to their talk at the show itself, White gathered everyone on a conference call for a little pre-show warm up, and the resulting conversation gives a wide overview of the mapping world and it’s current challenges and opportunities. If that’s your bag, click here to read the full article.

As you might have already read, we did our official launch last week in France and Germany, and the French press have really caught on to waze. We received coverage in some of the top tech publications in the country and were received with a lot of enthusiasm. Here are just a few examples of what folks over there are saying about us…

• “Plus qu’un long discours, je vous invite vraiment à profiter de ce logiciel gratuit et prometteur qui vous permet de faire votre trajet d’une nouvelle façon. Enfin un GPS différent ! “ * “More than a thousand words, I truly invite you to enjoy this free promising software that allows you to make your commute in a new way. Finally, a different GPS “- Baptiste Provoost

• “Avant de lancer ça, je me suis dit… c’est mort, dans ma campagne ce sera le grand vide : que nenni ! Toutes les routes (même les chemins forestiers interdits à la circulation ) étaient présents autour. Du coup je l’ai adopté !…Une appli très prometteuse “ * “Before running it, I told myself … it’s dead in my area,  it will be a big fail: but no! All roads (even the forest roads forbidden for traffic) were present around me. So I adopted it! …A very promising application “ – android-software.fr

• “L’application ne pèse que 8 Mo, ce qui est bien entendu très inférieur aux concurrents que sont TomTom, Navigon et autres solutions de navigation routière iPhone déjà vues dans nos colonnes. “ * “The application weighs only 8 MB, which is, of course, much lower than the competitors such as TomTom, Navigon and other solutions for iPhone vehicle navigation already seen in our features.”- iphon.fr

• “Nous avons pris connaissance de cette application la semaine dernière, après quelques jours de test, le test est concluant. La communauté française est naissante, la cartographie s’améliore de jours en jours, les développeurs compte sur la communauté soudée du monde iphone, pour la parfaire. Soyez les premiers pionniers de cette application.” * “We were made aware of this application last week, after several days of testing, the test is conclusive… Be the first pioneer of this application. “ – IPHONE-FORUM.FR

Channel 5, out of Raleigh, North Carolina, did a nice little report on free traffic apps, featuring Derrick Burr, one of our top users in the area. Click on the image below to see the story – and big thanks, Derrick, for your support!