Waze vs. Mapquest Mobile - What we should do

Map Editors Community Official Announcements
1

OK Waze. It had to happen.

On March 29, Mapquest added Voice Prompted turn by turn navigation to their FREE app.
US smartphone users are trying both applications and making choices.
Just like Yahoo and Google, eventually one choice will be dominant.

Not much yet on comparative analysis
So here’s my summary. Followed by some thoughts on competitive reaction to this threat.
See bottom for my full compare of Waze and Mapquest.

Waze vs. Mapquest

Waze - Current weakness
Low Name recognition and financial backing may be limited
Inaccurate maps, especially in major metropolitan areas
Poor routings due to poor maps

MapQuest - Current Strengths
High Name recognition and financial backing (AOL) is strong
Maps are highly accurate, except for construction zones

Waze - Current Strengths
Application is stable
Area Managers - ability to update maps for changing conditions and most are highly committed
User feedback on map errors go to area managers

Mapquest - Current weakness
Does not allow user reporting or capture user speeds to show road delays
Some users report app crashes per iTunes
Some users report app give bad directions / maps out of date on iTunes

Analysis and Competitive Response

Analysis: - The market for free GPS is new and market penetration is minimal currently. Waze application is stable and has been used productively for 2 years in Israel. Mapquest application is new and may be initially buggy. Mapquest has strong name recognition which should lead to early use by Iphone / blackberry users. Waze has little name recognition outside of early adopters and the technical press. Waze has a strong potential advantage with its ability to leverage real-time user data and feedback. Also, the committed Waze area managers provide another potential strength, if they can be leveraged quickly.

However, the critical differentiator is accuracy of the underlying maps. Mapquest US maps are significantly more accurate than Waze US maps. So, Mapquest is more likely to provide acceptable to good routings, while Waze will give more poor to impossible routings due to inaccurate maps. Waze has time to close this gap but will need to move quickly to maintain competitive advantage.

Competitive Response:

Waze must rapidly improve the accuracy of their maps if they hope to compete in the US market and win over Mapquest. To do that Waze must think strategically about how to leverage their strengths and address their map accuracy gap. First, with limited resources, focus is critical.

The Pareto (80/20) principal must be paramount. 80% of any outcome is derived from 20% input.
Example 80% of sales dollars come from 20% of the product line.
Similarly, 80% Waze user’s travel time will occur on 20% of the Waze map.
Or, more directly, fix 20% of the Waze US map and the vast majority of Waze users map issues have been addressed. The rest of the effort is just ‘mopping up’ after the battle is over.

But, how do you identify the critical 20%?

Strategic Goal:

First, most potential Waze US users live in or near major cities.
Per the US Census - 80% of US population lives in Urban Areas vs. 20% in Rural Areas.
http://www.fhwa.dot.gov/planning/census/cps2k.htm

Next, recognize that 25 urban areas hold 50% of US urban population. Focus resources in these 25 urban areas.
65 urban areas comprise 70% of US urban population.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Table_of_United_States_Metropolitan_Statistical_Areas

See attached spreadsheet. http://www.tcinternet.net/users/rtwolfe/US_Urban_Pop.xls
But, just focusing on these critical cities in not enough.
Focus on the vital roads that provide the largest benefits.

In “urban areas, the arterial system is divided into principal and minor arterials. The urban principal arterial system is the most important group; it includes Interstate highways, other freeways and expressways, and other principal arterials. The urban principal arterial system serves major metropolitan centers, corridors with the highest traffic volume, and those with the longest trip lengths. It carries most trips entering and leaving urban areas, and it provides continuity for all rural arterials that intercept urban boundaries. In 1997, the urban principal arterial system accounted for 1.9 percent of total miles in the United States. However, this network carried 57.8 percent of urban traffic and 35.5 percent of total travel in the United States.”
http://www.ncdot.org/planning/development/TIP/func/funcOverview.htm

Freeways in urban areas carry about 60% of all urban traffic.
Accurate routes on Principle arterial roads (aka Freeways/Toll ways), provides the majority of routes needed. Add the collector roads and nearly all routes are covered.

Tactics:

Waze US maps are based on US Tiger maps. However, these maps are flawed and need manual corrections by Area Managers or Waze personnel to provide needed accuracy, before proper routing can occur.

Waze Personnel:
Waze personnel, with support of specialized IT tools, might be able to mass update major freeways quickly to provide accurate routing. Perhaps specialized programs that look at recent GPS points and recent routes could use statistical models to derive the accurate flow patterns and define the road layouts. Perhaps specialized programs that analyze aerial photos and positioning of cars and trucks could set the flow patterns and road layouts. Lastly, specialized programs that allow authorized personnel to use devices like light pens or touch screens to ‘draw and configure’ freeways and ramps graphically verses manually setting each road segment or ramp.

Risk: New and Unique Programming takes valuable time and might not be able to provide the functionality needed quickly.

Area Managers:
Area Managers could correct the freeway inaccuracies, however there are three issues. First, how to get area managers to focus on critical freeways first. Second, how can Waze increase the productivity of these volunteer area managers so they can better use their limited time to complete the task quickly. Third, some area managers do not have the needed skill levels to complete the task. Specific Waze staff should be assigned to key cities to motivate the area managers and ensure freeways are quickly updated.

  • Freeway Focus - Establish regular communication with area managers in critical cities. Use of direct email, pings or asking non-area managers with high point totals to become area managers can improve alignment. Help establish plans and priority lists. Work cooperatively as a team to fix critical freeways.

  • Increase productivity - Establish regular focus group meetings with top area managers to get their input on how best to improve productivity and accuracy. Let them vote and prioritize the suggestions. Weight the votes to reflect the point totals of more experienced area managers.

Possible suggestions to improve productivity. More should be gathered from focused communication with experienced area managers

- Increased skills - provide more on line training, and especially encourage area managers in key cities to review the training. Also attempt to get other area managers to mentor the manager that needs help.

Risk: Area managers are volunteers so there are limits on that amount of effort that they may be willing to contribute. However, pareto analysis may show that 80% of the updates are provided by 20% of the area managers. Perhaps appropriate incentives could be provided to area managers who complete their freeway work by a set timeline. Inexpensive rewards such as local celebration parties, hats, gifts etc could be used to encourage performance. Monetary rewards could also be considered, perhaps as a lottery.

Full Compare

Waze Current weakness
Low Name recognition and financial backing
Inaccurate maps, especially in major metropolitan areas
Poor routings due to poor maps
Does not run on Blackberry

Map Quest Current Strengths
High Name recognition and financial backing (AOL)
Maps are highly accurate, except for construction zones
Create a trip by adding multiple destinations to your route.
MapQuest Place Carousel displays hotels, movie theatres, gas stations, and more with a single tap.
walking directions (Pedestrian mode)
Runs on blackberry and Iphone
Three energy saving modes

==============================

Waze Current Strengths
Application is stable
Area Managers - ability to update maps for changing conditions and most are highly committed
User feedback on map errors go to area managers
Some Incident reporting - Speed traps, Accidents, Road Construction
Runs on Android and Windows Mobile
Global application

Mapquest Current weakness
Does not allow user reporting or capture user speeds to show road delays
Some users report app crashes per iTunes
Some users report app give bad directions / maps out of date on iTunes
Map always pointing North, so it doesn’t rotate the map as you drive along.
Does not run on Android and Windows Mobile
US only application - not global yet

==============================

Waze Future Strengths
Real-time reporting of road conditions if user base is large enough
Maps can become highly accurate, including road construction

Mapquest Future Strengths
??? Not sure what they might add? Area Managers? Ping?

===============================================

Equal - Waze and Mapquest

Low user base
Free GPS navigation with voice prompts
Route calculation. Start driving without ever touching the iPhone again.
Automatic Re-routing if get off course
Save routes
Address Search
Name Search

2

It “Does” support winmo on Tmobile, AT&T, and Sprint. and not free for the voice nav etc. This is what you get for free:Quest® Maps and Directions for Mobile Devices

At MapQuest, we’re committed to helping people get where they need to go. As part of that commitment, we’re constantly exploring new technologies that can make the process easier – including wireless applications that allow you to access the maps and directions you need from your mobile phone or wireless device when you’re on the move.
MapQuest® for Mobile Web

MapQuest® for Mobile Web is a free1 wireless version of the MapQuest website that you can access anytime, anywhere through your mobile phone or other web–enabled device. Formatted especially for mobile web browsers using Wireless Application Protocol (or “WAP”), MapQuest for Mobile Web makes it easy to discover where you are, where you’re going, and what’s waiting for you along the way. You have anytime, anywhere access to the core features of MapQuest.com with no subscription fees — even when you’re away from your computer.

* Color maps of the US and Canada, with pan & zoom functionality
* Gas station locations and fuel prices; allowing the user to search by distance or price
* Step–by–step driving directions featuring mileage and travel time
* Advanced route options or alternate driving routes that avoid highways or tolls
* Multi–point routing option for up to six destinations
* Walking directions feature to find the most direct route
* Search by name, location, city, state, intersection, or over 16 million Points of Interest from the MapQuest database

How it Works:

You can access MapQuest for Mobile Web two easy ways:

* When you’re on the go, just type MapQuest.com into your phone’s mobile web browser.1
* If you’re planning your trip from your computer, use the “Send to Cell” option on MapQuest.com to access maps and directions from your mobile phone via an SMS text message2.

If you want all the bells and whistles it will Cost ya:
Choose an annual subscription to unlimited use of MapQuest® Navigator and save 58% of the monthly rate!
$49.99/year (only $4.17 per month!)
Try it for FREE* for the first 7 days
Choose unlimited use of MapQuest® Navigator for
$9.99/month
Try it for FREE* for the first 7 days

EDIT: Great post, gives us something to think about.

3

How I feel about both applications. I am not as wordy.

Waze = :smiley:
Mapquest = :cry:

4

Self-translation: “Just keep doing what your doing, MisterAsterix.”

Great Post, rtwolfe.

Perhaps though we should first try having the Area Managers helping the other Area Managers rather than taking any of waze staff off of continually improving the core program(s).

5

I agree with Gibby71.

I have free turn-by-turn navigation on my Nokia phone with Ovi Maps, which has coverage worldwide (US-only navigation is no good for 95% of the world’s population), but it’s ‘just’ another sat-nav product. Waze is community driven, reports traffic incidents as they happen, and you can edit the map and have your changes live within 24 hours. No other sat-nav product offers that.

You can’t really compare Waze with commercial navigation products. :slight_smile:

6

First: Don’t panic!
Second! Keep improving the product by listening to end user.
Third: Don’t panic!
Nice analysis. I think the what most of us like about Waze is what most of us don’t like about the other navigation options, namely the inflexibility of the software. More specifically, the roads are wrong. I know you are concerned with the most good for the most people and that is understandable, however, for the little guys out in the sticks Waze provides an excellent opportunity to try and get it right. The cities are fine and good as you have noted, they get lots of attention from lots of different sources it’s the other 95% (% just for illustration) of the land mass that needs work.

7

Great analysis rtwolfe. I think you have some good ideas in there and I think your analysis is spot on for getting more accurate maps.

As others have said, the one aspect about Waze that MapQuest and other nav apps don’t have is the social side of it. This is what makes Waze. Can you ping other people in MapQuest? Can you share info through the client or a forum like Waze? Can you munch roads and get cupcakes/treasure/etc on MapQuest?

This is why I choose Waze over any other. It’s fun and interesting and there are real people behind it, plus I can edit my roads if they are not right! If I see a wrong road on another nav app it will bug me to no end because I know they won’t fix it in a timely manner, and then they will use other resources to “fix” them and not a local person who is actually driving through that area.

I do have other apps loaded that I use if it’s important that I need to be somewhere unknown quickly (i.e. an interview, a job site) but in my life that happens maybe 5% of the time. And then I might use the other app to get there, and use Waze to get back or whatever :slight_smile: Then the next time I have to be at the same place I use Waze and fix any inaccuracies I see. Actually, since I started using Waze, I’ve gone from not trusting it very much to relying on it pretty much all the time.

I like your idea of somehow being able to find out which areas need more attention based on the most heavily traveled areas by GPS tracks. That would help me a lot as there isn’t much user feedback where I’m an Area Manager (not sure if this is just not a lot of users in my area or maybe they don’t know how to report things?) so I’m just fixing road important to me and also bigger highways that I know are used. But there is probably some I’m missing.

I do hope the support people at Waze are taking your post to heart though and start thinking about ways to get the accuracy up on the main roads and on the “competition”. Maybe put more cupcakes on the areas that are more heavily traveled, stuff that will make people notice the problems on the main roads so they can report them or fix them.

I think Waze is doing alright and even if a map app came out that was 100% accurate in navigation, I would still use Waze because of everything else it is.

OscarC

8

Thank you for all the comments. I also sent an email to Alpha and got this great response.
It’s great both because Dror wasted no time in replying and second it confirms that Waze is a responsive organization and want to help us all succeed in this project.

So, they will be watching this thread. Please add your thoughts and comments.
Especially include any thoughts you have on ways (waze?) Cartouche can be improved so users/area managers can more rapidly and effectively model their maps. Some of the best ideas will come from those who use an application regularly.

Cheers,
R Ted Wolfe

====================================
From: Waze Alpha Support
To: Ted Wolfe
Sent: Tuesday, April 06, 2010 10:20 AM
Subject: Re: Waze vs. Mapquest Mobile - What we should do.

Hi Ted,

Indeed very interesting and I will forward this around to the team.
Currently there are still some differences between the two (as some people mentioned in their comments to your post - this is not really a full navigation solution yet, but I’m sure it will turn into one some day soon).

One thing I can encourage you to do now is to leave comments on articles about this (on other websites) recommending people to try out waze. This way we know that people who are interested in a free navigation solution for iPhone know about waze.

Other than that I agree with what you wrote - we should encourage area managers to be more engaged, and put more effort into improving the product and the map editor based on feedback from the users. Obviously this is something we always try to achieve, but aggregating some good suggestions like the ones you brought up is a very effective way.

Thanks
Dror

9

I agree with all the comments made so far. Other applications just dont appeal to me. They don’t have the social aspect that others have mentioned. With those other applications I dont feel as though i’m adding any value.

Yes Waze has it’s bugs and quirks but it’s still growing and as many of you have personally been witness to, the support team really reaches out to us in a prompt and concerned way. It’s just something I don’t see in other applications. It’s almost like I feel I have a more personal connection with Waze.

As far as getting area managers to continue to be engaged in editing, this is one area where I have fallen a bit. It is fun and I enjoy it but lately I have gone through kind of a lull in my editing. It’s just like there isn’t as much reward or thrill in it as there used to be (at least for me). The contests have slowed. When was the last time Waze had some type of contest? There was a winter one with the snowflakes to get the various prizes hidden in treasure chests but after that it’s been relatively quiet.

Not to say that we constantly need physical prizes to keep us going but what happened to the small things like crowns for area managers or other small ‘badges’, rewards that you could collect as you made more edits. Little personal achievements that don’t have a monetary value but mean something to the end user. This is one thing I think we are missing now. What difference does it make if I have made 5,000 edits or 10,000 edits? Sure the maps might be better but besides the “feel good to know you’re helping the larger community” or “I want to be able to route to my destination without problems” aspect there isn’t a lot of drive to make maps better.

I remember the very first webinar we had where a user brought this up (badges, crowns, other small achievements) but these suggestions haven’t come through yet. There are bigger items in the pipe to improve Waze so these might not be as high on the list but I think these small rewards/achievements/game-like feel in the Waze application really drive user engagement (often addiction when correctly implemented in the past). Yes the map editing software needs to be easier to use and there is some missing functionality but if you can’t first convince your user base that your product is worth their time and make it something that they can’t get in their car every time without then there is no way that we are going to get them to want to edit maps.

For myself, some aspects have just lost their appeal, don’t take this the wrong way, I still love Waze, I enjoy editing maps in my area and I still can’t go anywhere without running Waze but I need to see more improvement to really drive me like I used to be driven to make changes to the maps.

10

Oh also a few minor updates for area managers to speed up the editing process:

-Finding pending deletions/additions takes way way too long.
-Approve multiple pending deletions/additions at once doesnt work.

11

Still Got you involved :wink: Bottom line is Mapquest free app is no match for Waze.

12

Mapquest Mobile is not available outside the US and Canada. Therefore it is useless for the vast, vast majority of the world’s population.

13

It does seem like the free gps nav market is going to explode soon/has already started. I do recommend waze to my friends and tech savvy acquaintances and encourage them to at least try it out for a while. The fact that its available for nearly all smart phone platforms really helps (i.e. Not limited like: Google Nav only on Android, or the Symbian-only program announced by Nokia a while back)

Personally, what gives waze a kick over the others, is that waze is 5/6 navigation and 1/6 social. I do admit I love it when I glance over to my phone and see another wazer in my vicinity. Maybe special hats on our waze guys for area managers, to encourage extra participation? :smiley:

14

That’s not a strength, it’s a weakness. (AOL) Kills anything it touches.

15

As will Waze if it is not updated to keep up with Iphone/Android versions of Waze… IE symbian/winmo. I will continue to use Waze until support stops, then back to tomtom/google mobile.

16

I love Waze so far. the points system is lots of fun! Me and my g/f are now starting to compete with each other.

I would suggest adding a bit more of a social aspect to this service. i’d like to have privacy settings specific for friends vs. random wazers. I’d even go as far as location rating/reviews with attachable pictures. The current limited social interactions are still great such as popping up messages to warn people behind me of a tire hazard is a huge plus!

I hope my suggests are heard. This service has huge potential it just seems resources are limited. I’d like to donate my services however possible. I’m a 10+ year software engineer and would love to see this service continue to flourish!

Best of luck!