Waze launches social network groups just for drivers

Waze, the world’s most popular social GPS smartphone app, today announced the launch of new driving “groups”, a feature that allows users to discover and connect to other drivers who share common interests on the road. While drivers may usually be alone in their cars, they’re actually often part of a broader group.

Naturally, driving groups are useful for commuters who travel from the suburbs to the city on a regular basis and would like to share specific tips about their route, but groups can also benefit fleets of professional drivers who belong to the same company, groups of friends travelling in a caravan of separate cars to a shared destination, people seeking cheap gas in a specific metro, motorcycle clubs, those looking to carpool, or any other grouping that waze users can dream up.

Driving groups allow users to receive focused road reports from the groups that they have joined. They also allow group members to keep track of one another via a shared group icon next to each member’s avatar on the map. Users will actually be able to see other members of their group as they advance in their trip on the map towards a destination. This layer of visual information can be very useful to any number of groups who want to stay informed as they travel. And for those who opt in and would like to connect beyond the waze platform, each member’s Twitter and Facebook profiles are clickable on the map to make connecting easy.

Users can create or join as many groups as they like, and to continue the conversation even further, group owners are encouraged to set up a dedicated Twitter account and Facebook fan page. In this first version, available on iPhone and Android only, groups are public and anyone can join them. In the future, it will be possible to create private groups, too.

Some group examples:
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San Francisco –> Mountain View
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Seattle –> Redmond
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Cheap Gas in Austin, TX
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Cabulous Cabbies
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NYC to The Hamptons

“Waze is powered by communities working together to improve their  everyday driving experience, and that’s why we’re happy to introduce these new driving groups to our users,” says Noam Bardin, waze’s CEO. “Our new driving groups will empower localized, geography specific groups to emerge and share real time information.  We’re looking forward to seeing the creative groups that they’ll come up with, and expect our driving communities, worldwide, to really benefit from this new functionality.”