Waze has enlisted 500,000 users for its crowdsourced driving app

Waze, the company that offers driving directions based on crowdsourced data, is revealing some specific numbers to illustrate its progress. The company just shared its users numbers and also announced its first deal with a map provider.

The company first launched its mobile application in Israel, then moved to the San Francisco Bay Area and beyond last year. (It’s based in Israel and Palo Alto.) Now it has 500,000 users, who contribute to Waze’s data by leaving the application open on their GPS-enabled phones as they drive, feeding map and traffic information back to the application. 5,000 users are more active, making edits to the various maps, and 550 users even more active than that, working as area managers who oversee the editing.

Waze now has maps in 85 countries, chief executive Noam Bardin said. 70 percent of the application’s traffic is coming from the United States, while 19 percent comes from Italy — the dominance of the US makes sense, but Bardin had a harder time explaining why Italy has taken off so strongly
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Crowdsourcing takes center stage at DEMOfall '09

Network World - One unmistakable trend at this year's DEMOfall show is the number of Web sites and applications that rely to some degree on crowdsourcing. Crowdsourcing –- a buzzword loosely defined as giving large crowds of users the ability to collaboratively create or change content on Web sites or applications -– was made popular by open-source encyclopedia Wikipedia and has since become a staple of Web 2.0 applications. Among the new crowdsourcing technologies to debut at DEMO this fall are Article One Partners’ AOP Patent Studies, an open-source enterprise service that employs an online community of patent advisors to research patent claims; Waze, a mobile application that can be used to update traffic conditions in real time; TrafficTalk, a mobile application that is similar to Waze but also lets users provide traffic updates simply using their voice rather than typing into their mobile phone; Micello, a mobile app that aims to be the Google Maps of indoor spaces; and Answers.com, a Web site that combines established reference resources and crowdsourcing to create a comprehensive information database. So why does crowdsourcing have such an appeal for developers?
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waze Drives into the iTunes App Store, Offers First Free Crowd-Sourced Maps for iPhone

PALO ALTO, Calif.–(BUSINESS WIRE)– waze, Inc., the first free provider of driver-generated maps and real-time road information, today announced the availability of its mobile application in the iTunes App Store. Through a community of drivers, waze harnesses driver-generated data to build road maps and provide real-time traffic information to commuters. Unlike static maps and first-generation traffic networks, waze relies on a community of drivers to both populate the maps and provide daily traffic information. As more and more iPhone users download and use the app, the maps and traffic information will become more robust and accurate over time. iPhone users can download the app today from iTunes today. “This is just the start of a crowd-sourced project that will change the way drivers make their daily driving decisions,” said Noam Bardin, the company’s CEO.
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