Given that slogan, it would be nice to make the “social” part of that message easier to use. Yes we have the options to report “chit chat” but then how do we reference it later? How long do those logs show up? Also, when you create a report on something and you get comments. How do you go back and read it or continue a conversation from that incident? Especially when you are driving you cant look at it right away and will need to view it later. But by the time you are free to view, it’s no longer available.
some sort of wall/forum to chit chat would be nice. Allow veterans to help out the newbies. etc. Also some way of linking any comments to any incidents you have stored in some list to refer back to or something. Making this more social, would probably allow for “friends” list to be stored, etc.
I wanted to share with you some of the more social features that we’re adding or considering adding. many along the lines of the social features you mention above.
kasrhp - regarding your suggestion to enable viewing of a wazer’s rank. Here’s how it’ll be implemented. You’ll be able to see the rank and other details by clicking on a wazer on the map. We’re considering to also enable sending a private or public message (and possibly offer a predefined set of questions, usually related to road conditions or general greeting)
We are also considering showing an indicator of the nearest wazer (in a radious of up to tbd miles) if you click on it, it’ll zoom out to show both of you on the map, with an option to say hi.
The messages ( to your point ariesboy475) will be organized in the same way iphone sms communication is organized as in below. We are not sure however as to how much people really want to communicate with each other on the road. Will you be annoyed or glad if someone contacts you while driving…
We are also debating what should be the right privacy default status. Should your nickname appear by default when someone is clicking on your waze icon on the map or not?
Another feature we are adding that has a social element is the ability to view wazers on your route when in navigation mode, to make it easy to ask someone ahead of you what’s going on. we’ll also add the ability to view events on your route.
If we do end up adding this ability to better track your communications and the above mentioned functionality it is likely to be added under live info in the following manner.
Your feedback is welcome. Here’s what we’d love to hear about:
Privacy - how sensitive do you think people are to their nickname being displayed (with rank, points, and date of joining)
Social and communication / features - ariesboy475, kasrhp, seems you want / don’t mind being contacted with questions about the road? everyone?
Specific functionality above… all comments are welcome
I think it all looks great. Everything looks very smooth and streamlined. Id like to see the other Wazers. As far as the privacy, I think it could be left in place just like the user settings. You can decide on anonymous or to show your profile when you report incidents. Tracking your chit chat with other clients looks very good also. I like those features a lot.
I definitely like the idea of being able to message some one ahead of you on your route. That could be quite helpful.
As for privacy, could users define their own groups (manage through the web site?) and enable different details for those groups? I could let Family see everything, any time of the day. Friends might get most details, but only during my normal hours. Public users get just a username.
Looks good. The and the buttons at the bottom looks cleaner than what we currently have.
The “me on map” makes that button take up more space than necessary.
There should be 3 options for wazers: display s/n, display anonymous, invisible. That way that list can be by name user or just an anonymous. I may still want to be involved in convo or another in terms of road conditions but I may not want ppl to know exactly who I am.
BTW, it should say “x.x miles/metres away” instead of ahead. Since they may not be in front of you.
I like the “My conversations”. It looks good. I’m assuming it will be threaded in some way.
I think privacy is a huge issue. I personally like to stay anonymous . But since I’m an early adopter here and would love to help get this app going, I do display more info. We have the settings stored in the client already. Privacy for tracking and alerts display. If you choose to be anonymous all messages you send are anonymous if you choose to display your s/n the more poser to you. The only thing i think this breaks is separating individual anonymous users. Say in a chit-chat “report” you have a few named users + several anonymous users. If we can separate anonymous users’ different message in the thread we would not be confused who said what while still maintaining anonymity. Ofcourse the act of chit-chatting is an explicit reduction of that anonymity.
If i decide to publish my s/n by reports or by route traveled, I would not mind being contacted. But the option to be invisible, anonymous, or named wazer is always welcomed. Also, just because I was sent a message doesn’t mean i’ll have to answer it. Or even saw that a message was sent. It would also be nice if the system can auto reply to the person sending the message that “xyz is currently unavailable and was not able to reply”, would be nice too.
I think this is a great feature! Of course the ability to disable being messaged should be an option. There are days when I don’t want distractions in the car (or not very sociable), as I’m sure we have all had.
This is a touchy subject, I for one do not mind my nick showing up, but on the other hand I wouldn’t like receiving messages from other users by default.
A suggestion to add to the social “wazers on route” would be, when receiving a message from a user behind you, options are available to automatically reply. Such as a simple reply button which the user can type whatever they would like, All good, Light Traffic, Moderate Traffic, etc buttons to reply with a generic messages. Possibly even an button to reply with your average speed over x miles.
Hard subject but by default I would offer anonymous name but proper stats (rank, points, date) and then the option to display nick.
I would love to see more communication features implemented BUT no one wants to see drivers staring down typing on their phones. Hehe, if communication is implemented in a way that causes minimal interruption to the actual act of driving, then I am all for it.
I agree with Kwed. Anonymous is good, but I still want to see their stats.
In all honesty, Having some options for this is good, but i dont think it needs to be overkill. As it stands, there is no “real” info about us. The most anyone will really see from us is our user id, and rankings, etc. There is no personal info.
As far as the default privacy status, its just a nickname. Unless you go anonymous for the day, why not display a nickname? You still have the right to be anonymous. And I like Ariesboy suggestion of invisible.
def do the predefined answers/questions. That would obviously cut down on any typing involved, which is always good.
