My latest favorite craze is Waze. It is basically like Google Maps (Google purchased Waze in 2013 and Google Maps uses Waze data for traffic delays) but you can see other Waze users in real time, along with the latest gas prices, traffic jams, police traps, road hazards, and more. I am a bit of a Waze newbie but nevertheless I have been experimenting with its geosocial (location based) features.
The first thing that I wanted to do when I used the app was to connect with another “Wazer” (a Waze user). I attempted and failed to contact several. Today while on the way back home from my latest beach adventure I messed around with Waze. I was able to communicate with a couple of Wazers on Interstate 40 East headed towards Wilmington, North Carolina. I discovered that Wazers who have changed their username and profile icon are the most likely to respond, actually, so far they’re the only Wazers to have responded to me so far. I sent out a few “beep beeps” and got return “beep beeps”. While on the road I asked some of the people headed East if they were on their way to the beach. After contacting 4 or 5 Wazers with the message “Hello fellow Wazer, are you on the way to the beach?”, Jillian replied to me as seen below.
Jillian’s username has been redacted for privacy. As you can see above, she is on the way to the beach, and, she’s happy about it! I was headed West and messaged her back “Awesome, have fun, I am on the way home from the beach!”. She replied and informed me that there were cops everywhere:
I already knew this as someone else had been traveling an hour ahead of me, and, it is Labor Day weekend. In North Carolina that means the Troopers are out giving out lots of tickets making sure everyone is safe. That is ok with me, as the roads are very busy and I expect them to be policed on a busy weekend. Honestly I expected more police than the few that I saw! People from all over the country come to NC’s coast for the holiday and some of them and locals definitely need to be pulled over.
A waze ways ahead when I saw the highway patrol I added a report of a police trap. I guess this is ok as it is a function of a Google owned app, and afterall, it is only going to make people slow down, right? I immediately wondered if the police could use the app and incorrectly report speeding traps to slow people down. Hmm.. Anyways, shortly after posting this I received a couple of notifications of users thanking me:
Cool. I do not travel much and do not intend on reporting police traps often; just experimenting with the app itself.
Geosocial networking has always intrigued me. I have been a Yelp addict lately and with the amount of users they have, it would be interesting to see what would happen if Yelp added a Geosocial messaging option. I guess time will tell how other apps and social media networks use geosocial aspects.
Anywaze….. Check out Waze, and if you see me on the road, send me a beep beep!
- Google “Pure Spam” Penalty Deindexes Sites March 6 2024 - March 12, 2024
- What Happened to ChicagoNow.com? - August 30, 2022
- The December 2021 Google Local Pack Algorithm Update - December 17, 2021
Leave a Reply