Startup Monday: Waze

The San Francisco Bay Area is truly a beautiful place. Every year thousands of tourists, visitors, and newcomers flock to our beloved city. Unfortunately this leads to more congestion and even more traffic. San Francisco was actually just rated one of the top 3 cities with the worst traffic. Thankfully there’s an app that can help with this problem. If you haven’t already heard of Waze, it helps users share real-time traffic and road information.

Imagine all the millions of drivers around the Bay Area, working together to outsmart traffic and finding the best routes. Waze not only gives turn-by-turn voice directions, but also helps in alerting drivers about potential obstacles on their routes. It learns the favorable routes drivers take and can even locate nearby gas stations.

Waze has also successfully integrated social features. Users earn points every time they contribute road information. These points help solidify their position in the Waze community (such as “Waze Baby” to “Waze Royalty”). This app also uses a live drive-time integration. Users can even see live updates of their friends’ position on the map as they move.

Waze is easy to use and the additional features, such as voice navigation and the ability to see others live time really puts this above other apps.

What do you think about this app? Let us know in the comments below or on Facebook or Twitter!