Concept in Definition ABC

Collaborative services have been largely possible scale (worldwide) thanks to Internet, and some of them are paradigmatic of the so-called “new economy”. This is the case with Waze.

Waze is an Israeli company (later acquired by Google) that bases its service on offering information on the state of traffic, information that, at the same time, is provided to the company by the same users of the service.

How is this understood? To explain it, let's take an example: if I am Username Waze, with the app installed in me smartphone and I witness an accident when I go on the road, I can presume that soon - and due to the tasks of cleaning the road - there will be slow traffic in that part.

I indicate it to the app, which the rest of the users can do as they pass through the place and experience the retentions.

With this, an application user who is going to travel that route but has not yet entered it, can know the incident in advance and, if it is the case, avoid deviation in your journey through an alternative route more fast.

The great advantage that Waze presents is that the data it offers is in real time, unlike other systems that need the data collection, its processing, and the subsequent generation of the information, which at the time of giving it may already be obsolete.

This is normally the case for television and radio reports on the state of road traffic.

Although the functionality of knowing the traffic is the best known and appreciated, Waze also serves as a replacement to traditional specialized GPS navigation systems.

By incorporating our cell phones a GPS receiver and the ability to connect to the Internet, navigation with directions also reached the smartphones. In this way, it is not necessary for us to spend money on a GPS, we only have to use our mobile.

Among the functionalities that Waze offers, we find navigation with voice instructions, route tracing alternatives to those levied with tolls, the indication of gasoline prices in real time, the notice about cameras of safety, or the connection with social networks.

The origin of Waze dates back to 2006 with the FreeMap Israel community project. Building on it and seeing the spectacular interest and result, its founders decided to create the company and change the name to Waze Mobile.

Despite the fact that the business model was not mature, several large companies in the technology sector were interested in Waze in the early 2010s, mostly there being rumors (never confirmed) about an offer of Facebook.

It was Google that, in 2013, took the lead by acquiring Waze for an astronomical $ 1.1 billion.

The acquisition was investigated in several countries, as Waze was one of the few competitors of Google in the field of maps and navigation from a smartphone, although it was finally given the green light.

In fact, and in this regard, it has been said that the purchase transaction was a movement of Google to block the possibility that Facebook could do the competence in this sector by purchasing a mature product with a broad user base.

Waze has developed a collaboration program with government agencies, whereby it shares its traffic data with them, and they share theirs with Waze.

In this way, governments have one more source of data, and Waze can have an extensive network track control and monitoring system that also provides you with information to improve your service.

Photo: Fotolia - Kaspars Grinvalds

Themes in Waze