Man, you kids are crazy… Less than a day after the launch of the new waze driving groups and already there are about 450 groups set up and ready to go (200 stateside, 250 around the globe) – you guys never fail to amaze us! So far, we see the groups broken up in these three categories: location-based, brand-orientated, and socially-driven groupings. Take a look at a tiny sampling of the driving groups that have popped up so far…Respect!

Location–Based Driving Groups

Mississippi Road Warriors
Wazer da bologna italy
Sherwood to west Little Rock Commute
Poland Wazers
East Bay to SF
New Jersey Commuters                          

Brand–Orientated Driving Groups

BMW Bimmer Group Atlanta
Mustangs Just for Mustang drivers with Waze on board
Subaru Lovers
Honda Wazers
Subaru Enthusiasts
Mini Cooper Wazers

Social Driving Groups (!)

Retro Gamers of Los Angeles
Sexy while driving!!
Pasadena Nightlife
Art Center Students
Final Fantasy XIV Wazers
New lesbian friends in mass

Lots doing over here at waze these days, and as a result, we got a jam-packed version to offer up to you guys.  Here are the main elements and a bit of background around each…

Driving Groups

Version 2.0’s main feature is a new concept we created called driving groups. Basically, the idea was this: While drivers may usually be alone in their cars, they’re actually often part of a broader group. Naturally, driving groups are useful for commuters who travel from the suburbs to the city on a regular basis and would like to share specific tips about their route, but groups can also benefit fleets of professional drivers who belong to the same company, groups of friends travelling in a caravan of separate cars to a shared destination, people seeking cheap gas in a specific metro, motorcycle clubs, those looking to carpool, or any other grouping that you guys can dream up!

(more…)

Hey Everyone. We’re really excited to announce the launch of our newest ’super social’ version, featuring really cool Twitter and Facebook integrations. We’ve taken advantage of Twitter’s new extended geo-capabilities to maximize the real-time, user-generated information that will be available to you on the map, and with the Facebook integration, you’ll have a lot of fun seeing your friends wazing around you. Here, each part in a little more detail…

Twitter

As you already know, waze is all about reporting on real-time road information, and now with our new Twitter integration, we’re takin’ it to a whole ‘nother level. This version will feature geo-tagged tweets right there on the waze map. This means that if someone tweets that they’re stuck in traffic, it will appear almost immediately on the waze map with a road report pin along with a little ‘t’ icon to indicate that the report came from a Twitter user. And if you’re using a Twitter client and would like to ensure that your road-orientated tweets are picked up by the waze system, make sure to use this hashtag: #wazelive

Incorporating tweets onto the waze is going to expand our coverage of real-time road events significantly, plus, the coolest part is that the Twitter integration functions two ways – once you input your Twitter details under Settings, you’ll be able to respond directly to tweets (on waze and Twitter, simultaneously) by commenting on the road report, turning waze, essentially, into an on-the-go Twitter client – one that also provides directions. Pretty neat, eh?

Facebook

There will finally be faces on the map, so you can now see who is actually wazing around you! We think you’ll really like that, and if you want to share your Facebook name/profile picture, all you have to do is visit your user profile and enter your FB details. Doing so will also connect you with all of your Facebook friends who are using waze as well. This means, you’ll be able to see your FB friends on the map with a little ‘f’ icon next to their waze mood, and will be alerted when one of them is somewhere nearby.

If you like, you’ll have the ability to post your whereabouts onto your Facebook wall as a status update, and if you’re not into that you can adjust your setting accordingly to disable that function. And, if you’re the competitive type, you’ll really like the ability to see how you stack up against your FB friends on the waze scoreboard’s Facebook tab.

So, what do you need to do?

*  Download the new version.

*  Make sure your Twitter and Facebook details are on file.

*  Use the #wazelive hashtag to ensure your tweets are picked up by the waze system.

*  Have fun with the new functionalities! If you have any comments, or questions, please feel free to be in touch: alpha@waze.com

The new iOS4 for iPhone will be a great boost for location and navigations applications. It allows apps to run in the background while giving users the ability to simultaneously conduct other important tasks such as sending and receiving calls, all while still hearing turn-by-turn voice instructions. This new iPhone functionality is especially important for crowdsourced apps, such as waze, that rely on our users to passively provide their GPS and traffic data, so for us, it is key that users can now speak  on the phone while remaining connected to our app.

This great functionality comes with a price, though. Navigations apps, known for their heavy data consumption, can be forgotten in the background and significantly drain battery.  While some simpler implementations require the user to manually disconnect the app, waze has a different approach to background processing and shut down. When waze goes into the background, algorithms are applied to detect whether or not the device is in motion. Following a long standstill, waze will automatically close itself when it determines that you are no longer using the app, avoiding needless data and battery consumption.

Not only is waze cute, but it’s smart, too!

Hey Y’all – just a quick head’s up that a new iPhone version dropped today.  Here’s what it includes:

• A  ‘report  abuse’  feature - the  community’s  growing  and  there’s  many interactions  taking  place.  As  can  be  expected,  there’s  always  some  people  who  take  advantage  of  the  system,  so  we’re  enabling  users  to  flag  inappropriate  users.  Above  a  certain  number  of  reports  by  different  users,  a  user  will  automatically  be  disabled  from  pinging.



• An  improved,  and  much  better‐looking  navigation  bar - allowing  bigger  texts  and  ETA.
• Auto-update your  Facebook  status  – just  like what  we  do  for  Twitter.  In  the  future,  we’ll  use  Facebook  Connect  for  many  cool  features  such  as  showing  your  friends  on  the  scoreboard,  etc. – so stay tuned to the blog for more information, as we have it…



• Adding  street  name  &  house  numbers  from  client – note that this  feature  is  available  in  Grid  countries  only,  and  will  be  developed  later  for  additional  purposes.
• Spread  the  word – We  need  as  many  wazers  as  we  can  on  board  and  we  need  your  help  to spread the word, so we’ve  added the ability to invite  your  Facebook  friends  (in  the  future  we’ll  enable  showing  your  friends  in  the  client)  to waze and  to  let  you  review  waze  on both the  Appstore  and  Chomp, a  great  new  app  for  user  reviews  of  iPhone  apps.

That’s about it this time around. Make sure you hop over to the Appstore and update waze so you’ll be running with the newest version next time you hit the road…

A great new version went live a couple of hours ago, and in it you’ll notice minimal UI changes but a few great new functionalities.

Here’s what it includes:

A contributors scoreboard

Finally! The scoreboard serves to put your points in context. With it you’ll see how you stack up against others in your state/country – and worldwide – according to rank and points.

You can view a daily updated status report, showing top contributors for the current week, or an overall aggregated view. What’s cool is that it shows trends and mobility:  top contributing users in your state/country, plus who’s going up or down in rank.

As a global community, the part we like the best about the new scoreboard is the world view, where you’ll be able to see the top contributors worldwide. Note, however, that the initial release still hasn’t merged user databases, so the ‘All’  view won’t include the US and Canada for those outside of those countries, and for those in the US or Canada, the ‘All’ section will consist of the US and Canada only.  As you know the points system is new, so if find anything wrong with your points let us know. We hope to merge the user base data bases soon and provide a unified ‘World’ view. We’ll also add other cool functionalities in next version, so stay tuned!

Personalized alternative routes

Since waze is geared towards commuting and everyday driving in places you already know, we think that the ’standard’ system-calculated routes don’t quite cut it. You already know the different alternative routes for getting to work or home, and you have your specific little reasons why they are YOUR preferred routes, not necessarily the fastest or shortest. The question you usually are asking yourself at the start or close of the day is which one is best right now, right?

So, we’ve introduced personalized alternative routes. Waze will learn the different routes you take to frequent destinations and will tell you which one is most optimal at any given moment. Until waze learns your preferred routes, or if you are driving to non-frequent destinations, waze will show you the  alternative routes,  based on real time traffic,  which is also cool, but not as cool as the personalized ones

How can you make sure waze learns your routes quickly? Well, first off, it takes two to three times traveling each route for waze to learn it. Make sure you start waze and program in your destination point before you start the drive. As you can tell this is a pretty complex feature, and it may take a bit of time to fully mature, so please bear with us. And as always, your feedback is essential. Please leave any thoughts or questions you might have in the comments section, or email alpha@waze.com.

Tell A friend

Now wazers on iPhone can tell their friends about waze with a convenient email, ready to send to your contacts. Click the arrow on the bottom right of your screen, then the small envelope, to enter your friends’ email addresses.

That's Yael figuring out how to make the perfect product

We’ve just submitted a new version to the iPhone Appstore and, similar to our newest Android release, this new version will have some very significant performance updates. You’ll notice that all functions will perform much faster than before and since the update is designed to use less resources, running waze won’t drain your battery like it might have in the past. We’d be happy to hear what you think, and if you notice the difference…

In addition, the new iPhone version will include the Ping-a-Wazer feature, too. We’ve already seen folks having a lot of fun with it on Android, but again, a reminder – though you can ping a wazer and it may appear as a private conversation, it’s not. All chit-chats are publicly viewable, so use your best judgment, wazers! It may take about a week +/- for approval from the Appstore, but it shouldn’t be too long now and we’ll update you here on the blog once it’s good to go…

Beyond the stuff that’s coming down the pipeline in the near future, we’re also thinking ahead and having plenty of meetings (in our white lab coats, of course) to discuss how to take waze to the next level, so make sure to stay tuned…

And lastly, if you didn’t already know it, the waze badge on Foursquare is now up for the taking (and has been for a few weeks). All you have to do is check in to anywhere on Foursquare via waze three times and – poof!- it’s yours…