Find your Waze
Wouldn’t it be great if you could harness the magical power of the internet to guide you through Richmond’s peril-filled streets? NOW YOU CAN. Well, you’ve able to do this for quite a while now via the Maps app on your iPhone or a dedicated GPS device. But neither of those solutions have harnessed the […]
Wouldn’t it be great if you could harness the magical power of the internet to guide you through Richmond’s peril-filled streets? NOW YOU CAN. Well, you’ve able to do this for quite a while now via the Maps app on your iPhone or a dedicated GPS device. But neither of those solutions have harnessed the social, always-on aspects of today’s internet usage. Luckily there’s Waze!
Waze is a newish social-enabled turn-by-turn navigation app for your iPhone, Android, or Blackberry1. I say newish because they have 12 million users worldwide, which is great because that means some of those users (kind of a lot actually) are right here in RVA.
Basically, Waze adds crowdsourcing to navigation. Which, I know I know, like we need another social doohickey plugged into our Facebooks cluttering up our Walls. But this actually kind of works. Think of it like Wikipedia but for getting to work as quick as possible. Users can report (with voice recognition–don’t use your phone while driving, OK?) traffic, hazards, and police cars so other users can avoid those things and be on their merry ways. Not only that, but Waze will learn your preferred routes to your favorite places and optimize its suggestions accordingly. And if you are really into it, you can actually edit the map to help make the directions more accurate. How cool!
I’ve been using it for a couple weeks, including a trip to Blacksburg, and have been impressed with just how fun the app is to use. Part of that might be some of the (now mandatory, it seems) gaming features they’ve thrown in, and part of that might be that I am a huge map dork. But part of it might be that Waze is just a super cool app.
Best part: it’s free!
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Footnotes
- People still use Blackberrys I guess? ↩
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Notice: Comments that are not conducive to an interesting and thoughtful conversation may be removed at the editor’s discretion.
I started using this a little after your Tweet about it, and I’ve been pretty happy with it, too, so far.
I installed that when it first came out and didn’t really get it. Maybe I’ll try it again.
@Daniel I’d think it be a great tool to check traffic and hazards on the way to/from the West End. For in town use I’m not sure there is a lot of need, but it was great to have a software GPS on our trip to Blacksburg.
So it’s like an app version of blinking your headlights to let people know there’s a cop up a-ways?
@Hayley Yeah! But for traffic, weather, and other stuff too.
I use Waze while commuting to DC once or twice a week. It is great for getting alerts about speed traps and traffic jams. The gaming aspect has started to take hold with me too – I am constantly reporting things to gain more points (what for, I am not entirely sure yet)!