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Aug. 24, 2009

Raanana, Israel -- In the past, traditional navigation tools were too expensive and almost useless when it came to providing vital information regarding real-time road conditions.

Navigational unit maker Waze now offers a solution with a free community-based navigation application that allows users to collect and report real-time road and traffic conditions and share them with a larger community of Waze users.

The unit is dependent on interaction from its users. Noam Bardin, CEO of Waze says "the things that affect us in our daily lives are really temporary. If there's a three-month construction project in your area, traditional turn-by-turn will continue to route you through that area regardless of slow moving traffic."

He added "three months isn't a resolution that these established map companies are going to be able to handle."

"That's exactly the biggest challenge we have. Waze is a community application and it takes time for it to mature... However, anyone who uses it is actually participating in the project,” Bardin said, noting that just by driving around with their phone on, users are collecting map data for the system.

Whether you choose to go with the monthly subscription service provided by a wireless carrier, which on average runs about $10 per month, or invest in a separate portable unit to keep you on track, things can get a little pricey.

For example, a recently-offered Navigon iPhone application lists for $69.99. Others are also available for even more.

But on a higher level of participation, users actually report things that are happening in real-time with pictures and geo-tags. At the highest level of involvement, a mobile user can be given editing and approval permission for an entire town or city.

“People ask to become area manager. They basically take responsibility for their town or city,” Bardin explains.

Bardin says he’s already seen some success in Israel, where the application has already been downloaded over 150,000 times on Google's Android platform. He says in Israel, the application has already achieved critical mass.

Likewise, the application is now being offered in the U.S. and only on Android for now, but the company recently added an iPhone app, which is the fourth most popular navigation application at the Apple App Store.

So things are looking up. Bardin says that Android was the most logical first step, as the platform provides a speedy time to market. He hopes his navigation application will eventually be available on BlackBerry, Windows Mobile and Symbian platforms as well.

Waze also worries that drivers will attempt to send updates while driving and says it already provides a solution for that problem.

“Our new navigation application actually freezes your keyboard when you're driving over 10 miles per hour,” said Bardin. “We're really concerned about the safety factor. Too many road accidents have already happened in the last year by drivers that were texting while driving. This is a very similar parallel here and we don't want that."

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Source: Waze Software Inc.