Affinitive’s Social Media Playground

Before moving to NYC, Waze was my co-pilot to and from work. Battling the infamous I-405 freeway we would go, Waze helping me avoid everything that was between my front door and my work desk.

If you’ve found yourself in bumper to bumper traffic in LA, or any major city for that matter, you understand that it takes a community to get you through everything intact, both emotionally and physically. With Waze, that’s exactly what you got. With over 9 million users worldwide, 60-70K new users signing up each day, Waze uses the information shared by users and collected from mobile devices on the road through crowdsourcing to become Google Maps on steroids. It’s more than just red, yellow, and green lines. It’s the real-time updates on the average speed on a road. It’s the description of an accident and where it happened. It’s so much more.

The free service offers tools that other services charge for, and delivers instant value when you join and start using the platform. Then there’s the added value of connecting with others. You build a support team to help conquer the road. You ping other drivers, create driving groups, and connect with others to carpool. One new driver group is “ABC7 Traffic Watchers in LA,” created after Waze announced a new partnership with ABC & BELO stations. Groups are popping up everywhere, letting people with similar commutes easily share reports and post on community walls. For friends not on Waze, you can sync your information with Facebook, Twitter, and even Foursquare – making it  easier to share traffic info and check into different locations.

Obviously I’m pretty excited about Waze as a traffic/navigation tool, but as its user base grows and features are refined, this inherently social application has the chance to evolve into a bona fide social network.

What’s next for Waze is anyone’s guess. The user base is growing at an astronomical rate, and just two months ago the company raised $30 million in funding. Waze will use the money for partnerships and to expand globally, but it will also be in a position to make major updates to its application. Playing dreamer and thinking about what is down the line, these are some of my ideas:

Added Social Features
Example: Destination Check-In.  See other users who are going to the same destination as you are. Whether it’s a concert, sporting event, or the center of a city, it’s a new way to meet others.

Deals
Example: Travel Incentives. A new restaurant just opened and wants to let people in the community know. When you launch your Waze application, you are alerted about a special in your area. Select “Navigate To” and you’ll activate the unique discount code by driving to the restaurant with Waze.

Interactive Games
Example: Scavenger Hunts. A car company wants to do a fun promotion, hiding clues throughout the city and bringing you to one of their dealerships. Waze navigates you to the dealership to pick up your game board before you’re sent throughout the city, picking up clues and game pieces to complete your mission. Once you’ve gathered everything, Waze brings you back to your final destination to pick up your prize.

If you want to learn more about Waze, visit their website which has a short video that takes you through the entire application. Before you start to worry about the safety of the world driving with Waze, it does disable typing while you drive. Life’s too short for traffic, so fire up your Waze app and let me know what you think!