How is this different than Google Maps?

Map Editors Community Community Issues And Requests
1

I’ve just insatlled this and will have a bit of a play, but it strikes me that google maps on my android phone already does essentially the same thing (at least from my ignorant perspective), namely it uses people’s devices to provide real-time traffic updates to it’s maps? The benefit of Google Maps is that the street maps are already there.

From what I could see, alot of the functions of Waze are there to help update/create roadmaps.

There are some interesting features of taking pics and creating alerts, but I’ll need to play with these to see if they’re actually usable while driving.

I’m not trying to flame, I’m just interested in knowing if this app is in direct competition or has features that differentiate it markedly from Google Maps / Lattitude.

2

Google maps is free to you, but Google pays for it. This relies on a company to update/correct the roads. If you (or people like you) update your area, especially when roads are added/changed/removed, the information is a lot more accurate/live. You’ll know better than someone in another state when things change.

They don’t have live traffic data: If I report an accident on road A, you will see it and can get routed around it. (They only have “historical” traffic data and their accident/“Live” info doesn’t translate to the phone and is from another paid service.) Now imagine if half your city did that while travelling, you’d have a very “live” traffic source of information while you’re travelling (as long as you have internet connection).

I’m sure others can add many more other benefits. I’m still new around here.

3

A real world example, Google, or rather their map provider, recently and incorrectly changed my street name to Green Way from Greenway.

Now I can not navigate home using my Android phone. More importantly, people who try to navigate to my house from contact information I sent them are sent to a different city. I have reported the problem, but based on prior issues with Google Maps problems I will probably move before it gets fixed.

Now, imagine that happened to your small business. Currently not being found in Google Maps is like not being listed in the Yellow Pages was 10 years ago.

Waze is to Google Maps what Wikipedia is to commerial encyclopedias. Once you accept that the latter is fallible then it becomes possible to believe a user maintained source can become dominant and over time be more accurate and more relevant.

4

I think this is the best first post I have ever seen. Welcome to the board.

5

Ok, it’s good that this app will give far more real-time info on traffic compared to Google. That’s good.

But the arguements about Google being slow to correct or update their maps is, to me, not a very compelling arguement. 99.99% of the time, the roads don’t change and the road data is correct. Heck, even if it’s 95% stable, it’s good enough. There’s no satnav software that I’ve seen that is completely accurate or gets updated quickly.

Yes, it’s >possible< that Waze could provide updated information faster, but when I offset that very rare occasion against the disadvantage that Waze doesn’t actually know most of the roads where i live (Melbourne, Australia), it’s not very compelling.

I appreciate that it will become more accurate as more users use it, but this is likely to take years.

I’m still very interested in hearing about the other advantages that it has, but I think any attempt to promote Waze based on it’s ability to possibly provide updated/correct map information is not going to succeed on it’s own.

I’m curious why this app doesn’t simply use google maps “underneath” it and pay whatever licensing fee required. The app would then be almost complete out of the gate and would start attracting users immediately, rather than several years from now (unless you’re in San Francisco or one of the major U.S. cities that might have more users/more current maps).

I think the start-up time required with the current approach is it’s death-knell. By the time this app is useful, competitors will have updated their software to do all this and a lot more. This app needs a compelling differentiator if it is to succeed. I’m hoping this can be identified in this thread.

6

If you were running a local business ten years ago and tried to place a yellow pages ad and faced a 1 in 20 chance of being rejected through error you wouldn’t be so cavalier about a 95% accuracy rate. The same is true today of Google Maps. The key is not how many errors are present, or how long they take to get updated, its whether those errors affect you. The important point is that with waze you are in control, not some third party. Even if waze were never to become dominant in the mapping business its presence will force map providers to try to keep up with waze’s rapid update capability.

Arguments that it will take too long to build up the map database fail to take into progress in recent similar projects. If you review A History of Wikipedia you can see the effects of a nearly exponential growth on the number of articles. Wikipedia required authors with special knowledge, in contrast anyone can contribute to this project simply by turning on the app during their normal drive.

Wikipedia Growth (source: wikipedia)

waze success will come with continued participation and with benchmark moments. Twitter had its Oprah and Ashton moments as well as US Airways 1549 in the Hudson, Wikipedia had the NPR coverage of its coverage of the July 7, 2005 London bombings, so too will waze have its moments.

Crowdsourcing really accelerated at the end of 2009 and is expected to grow exponentially though out 2010. I would direct you to some of the writing of John Winsor. In addition navigation company TomTom recognizes the value of this approach and reported their 5 millionth community correction at the end of last year.

waze currently has many elements to make it poised for rapid growth. It has a game element that promotes participation through competition and it is a location based service which are very hot right now. It could use some improvements in stability and social media connectivity, but these will come.

Most importantly, their is nothing precluding you from using Google Maps as well as waze. You can contribute to waze simply by having it turned on during your regular commute. If you need to navigate to somewhere new you can always fall back on Google Maps if you don’t trust waze. It may even be possible to have it on while navigating with Google Maps, I have not tried this yet.

In response to your suggestion that waze use a commercial source as a starting point, it is not workable. waze intends to operate their company through revenue from commercial licensing of the waze map data. It would not be possible to do that with a underlying commercial map dataset. It might however be possible for a third party to create a hybrid client that combines waze realtime data with Google Maps maps. There are free map sources available in many areas and it looks as if the waze team has made use of some of them already. In my county, San Diego, CA, for example Maps and Navigation are already at the good level.

waze brings you a few features beyond what you can get from Google Maps. It is not costing you anything. It also provides an entertaining social location based game. If you are a mapping fan it provides the opportunity for you to help create/correct the maps in your area for other people to use. But all of this becomes more effective the more people use it, therefore it is vital that we spread the word about waze and share it with people who would like to have a little more fun in their every day driving. If you create a buzz around waze in your community then many of your roads will fill in quickly. The key will be in recruiting good area managers to help keep on top of update requests and make the system useful for your community.

7

Well, I continue to try using Waze and will have to re-aquaint myself with the interface. I’m not really sure what to expect from it yet. Here in Melbourne, there don’t seem to be any Waze users so I’m kinda a lone explorer and the updates aren’t really there, which makes using the system questionable. But I’ll keep trying it.

One observation is that the take-up graph of wikipedia highlights my concern - sure, there was a huge takeup but it took years before the spike began, and that’s with users that all have PCs. I suspect the curve might be similar to Waze but the timescale could be prohibitive.

Today I fiddled through the interface and found a Report button and sent a report that I was stuck in traffic. I’m not sure if that’s the right approach; surely it knows I’m stuck in traffic since I’m at a stand-still on a freeway, which is kinda the point of Waze anyway. So I doubt I actually needed to report it, but I also included a photo to have a play with that functionality.

I even saw the road go yellow and then red, which I assume means poor traffic flow. Whether that was because of my report of the vehicle speed is unknown.

I’ll post some feedback in another thread.

8

This is am interesting thread

I’m wondering, is that the official business plan presented to the VC companies? And what if that revenue modality did not meet expectation? I would have thought they would be more interested in a scaleable subscription model. Once user map development is substantially complete then offering grades of subscription with discounts for contribution seems almost inevitable to me. Perhaps I’m being too cynical-I’d be happy to be c8orrected.

9

Some apps just aren’t for everybody. If you like Google maps on your Android then by all means go use it.

I like waze for the sense the of community and participation. If there is something wrong with my commute route then I can personally go fix it myself. I get a huge sense of satisfaction when a fix I made, shows up on my phone.

I agree that there is a certain critical mass that has to be reached but you can be a part of that solution too. Some small towns will never reach that and it won’t be useful. That’s just the nature of it.