Here’s the story and video from ABC7. WSJ, NYT, Reuters, and Fast Company are already on it. Video and press assets can be found here. Some other goodies:
* Carmageddon promo
* Carmageddon Resistance

Let me know if you have any questions or if you’d like to get in touch with anyone at Waze!

Waze’s Citizen Traffic Connects Broadcast Media with Drivers on the Road

KABC-TV begins using real-time crowdsourced traffic data as content direct from its audience on the road 

(LOS ANGELES & PALO ALTO, Calif.) July 5, 2011 — Waze, the mobile social traffic and navigation app, is announcing today a partnership with KABC-TV in Los Angeles, Southern California’s most watched-television station. Waze is empowering the station to connect with its community of local drivers on the road for instant access to real-time traffic information and breaking news where it otherwise may not have reporters on the scene. Using Waze’s live map of users on the road, the station will be able to provide Los Angeles citizens up-to-the-minute road reports during the July 15^th weekend closure of the 405 freeway based on live feedback, incidents, and updates from Waze’s community of Los Angeles drivers. The closing 10 mile stretch is used by roughly 500,000 Los Angeles drivers on any given weekend. The “carmageddon”, as locals have dubbed it, is part of a $1bn highway improvement campaign that isn’t expected to be finished until 2013.

“There’s no question the upcoming closure of the 405 Freeway is going to seriously impact drivers in Southern California,” said Cheryl Fair, vice president and news director for KABC-TV.  “We have a responsibility to our viewers to provide real-time information, and Waze plays a big part in helping us do that. Not only can the Waze app help drivers find alternate routes, but what’s really exciting to us is how it enables our viewers to play an active part in easing the traffic congestion. While viewers use the app to get where they need to go, they’re simultaneously providing information to help their fellow drivers.”

Broadcast Media Warpath

Waze’s citizen traffic is being adopted by broadcast media around the globe, most notably in use by Channel 2, Israel’s largest news network where drivers volunteer to be called in by the station to report on live-traffic information from the ground. Stateside, Waze has also working with WBHH-TV in Southwest Florida, which has supplemented its traditional traffic feed with Waze’s citizen traffic from commuters on the road. However, this most recent partnership with KABC-TV marks the company’s first large scale media distribution in the U.S.

Milestones

The partnership coincides with Waze’s recent milestone of 4.5 million drivers in its community. The company’s growth rate is accelerating rapidly, more than doubling its active user base since its last announcement of 2 million drivers and $25MM in B-round funding last December. Waze also officially launched its service in Spain and the U.K last month, increasing its global reach and support to drivers in Western Europe.

“The use of crowdsourced traffic by major media is a huge validation of our community-based infrastructure,” said Noam Bardin, CEO of Waze. “Consumers embrace sharing information where it’s relevant and where they see real value in return. We’re happy to see that real-time traffic information is an offer they can’t refuse.”

Founded in 2009, Waze has since grown to become the world’s largest and fastest-growing community of connected drivers, reaching more than 4.5 million users in over 45 countries, worldwide. Waze is available on the Apple AppStore, the Android Market Place, the Nokia Ovi Store, RIM’s App World and Windows Market or download from m.Waze.com. To learn more about Waze online, visit www.Waze.com or follow us on Twitter at @Waze.

About Waze

Waze is a free community-based traffic and navigation app that uses real-time road reports from drivers nearby to save commuting time and improve everyday driving. Way more than just another free navigation app, Waze’s social layer is what sets it apart – giving drivers the power to work together to report and receive the most relevant traffic information available at any given moment. Plus, it actually makes commuting a whole lotta fun!

About KABC-TV

KABC-TV is the #1 rated television station in the Los Angeles area and the home of ABC7 Eyewitness News, the most watched local news coverage in LA with over 45 hours of live local news each week.  KABC-TV is also the west coast flagship of the ABC television network.

10. Asteroid Discovery

Scott Manley of the Armagh Observatory visualized 30 years of asteroid discoveries. It’s a straightforward animation that shows planets and asteroids orbiting the sun, with waves of twinkles as discoveries are made. I especially liked the contrast between human and automated discoveries.

9. Driving Shifts Into Reverse

Hannah Fairfield, former editor for The New York Times, and now graphics director for The Washington Post, had a look at gas prices versus miles driven per capita. The chart could’ve easily been an x-y scatterplot, but the extra step was taken to connect the dots so to speak. Points were ordered by time, and turns were clearly explained graphically.

8. The Evolution of Privacy on Facebook

This weekender by Matt McKeon of the IBM Visual Communication Lab explored the changes of Facebook privacy policies over the years. It came right after Facebook had made another update to push for a more public profile. Click on the interactive, and see what becomes public and how many people can see your postings.

7. What Online Marketers Know About You

Along the same privacy lines, this project from Andrew Garcia Philips and Sarah Slobin (plus five data gatherers) of The Wall Street Journal explored what online marketers know about you. I wouldn’t say the visualization itself was super advanced, but thoughtful reporting and company breakdowns really made the whole piece work.

6. Education Nation Scorecard

The Education Nation Scorecard, by Ben Fry-headed Fathom Design, brought together sparse education data, at the national, state, and local level, in a single application. You can easily search for your own school or area to see how it compares to the rest.

5. Nature by Numbers

Nature by Numbers by Cristobal Vila isn’t a typical data visualization piece. It’s more of a demonstration of mathematical concepts, but it’s a beautiful work that must be watched to fully appreciate. You will have a new found appreciate for Fibonacci, guaranteed.

4. Tracking the Oil Spill

The BP oil spill was the center of public attention for a good part of the year, and The New York Times did a great job at keeping us updated on all aspects of the spill. This included where the oil spread, what land areas were affected, and effects on wildlife.

3. Polymaps

JavaScript keeps getting faster and is becoming a viable route (over Flash) for visualization on the Web. Polymaps, by SimpleGeo and Stamen, is an open-source JavaScript mapping library that lets you build interactive maps from scratch. I haven’t had a chance to use Polymaps for a project yet, but I’m looking forward to it, and I am sure we will see a number of Polymaps projects spring up next year.

2. Journalism in the Age of Data

During his Knight Journalism fellowship at Stanford, Geoff McGhee interviewed visualization trendsetters on how they deal and what they do with data in Journalism in the Age of Data. Just about every well-known data practitioner (and their work) is featured in the hour-long video. The focus is on journalism, but the topics apply to all types of visualization.

1. Tourist Maps

We’ve seen maps based on Flickr photos before, but most aren’t much more than pictures on a map. Eric Fischer took the next step and looked for where the tourists flock, all based on data available via the Flickr API. Tourist photos are marked red, local photos are marked blue, and photos where tourism could not be determined were marked yellow. He did this for over 100 major cities in the world.

The end result was maps with pockets of tourists and locals. Visiting somewhere new and want an authentic experience? Maybe head towards the blue.

Fischer also had a fine series on race and ethnicity.

And there you have it. Those are my top ten picks for 2010. It was tough ranking all of them, as many of these could’ve placed top honors on a different day. What are your picks for the year?

Location technologies are transforming how we experience, navigate, and ultimately better our world. From the global to the local, here are #10Ways geolocation is a positive force for good.

Social media has changed the world. It has revolutionized communications on a global scale, and the transformation continues with every status update, blog post, and video stream. The global citizenry has become a global network.

Since becoming widely adopted just a couple years ago, social media has supercharged social action, cause marketing, and social entrepreneurship. Indeed, the true value hasn’t been the technology itself but how we’ve used it. Today, a second wave of innovation is defining a new era and setting the stage for change over the coming decade.

Mobile technologies will extend the global online network to anyone with a mobile device while enabling countless local networks to form in the real world. We’ve decentralized media production and distribution. We’re doing the same for energy. And we’ll continue this trend for social networking, social action, and commerce.

The combined forces of smartphones, mobile broadband, and location-aware applications will connect us in more meaningful ways to the people, organizations, events, information, and companies that matter most to us—namely, those within a physical proximity of where we live and where we are. Can location-based services (LBS) change the world? Here are #10Ways:

1. Checking in for Good: If Gowalla and Foursquare have taught us anything, it’s that people respond to simple incentives. By offering badges, mayorships, and other intangible rewards, millions of people are checking in to the places they go. Apps like Whrrl take this a step further and enable like-minded “societies” to form on a local basis. The next step is for these apps to add greater purpose by encouraging more meaningful checkins and offering corresponding badges and stamps, thus mapping the cause universe. Or for a dedicated app to be developed that rewards conscious consumption, social responsibility, and civic engagement. Yes, the CauseWorld app features a cause element, but it’s not about cause-worthy places.

2. Eating Locally: Sustainability demands that we source our food as close to its point of production as possible. Many so-called locavores subscribe to the 100-mile diet, which requires that one “eat nothing—or almost nothing—but sustenance drawn from within 100 miles of their home.” Given the difficulty of accessing and verifying this information in order to live by this standard, there’s a geo-powered Locavore app. It gives you info on in-season foods, those coming in-season, farmer’s markets, and links to recipes. This rather simple app is clearly just the start. In time, location-aware apps will guide us not only to the grocery store or farmer’s market but through them. All the while identifying foods based on our particular diet or sensibility.

3. Political Organizing: In the next presidential election, politics will not only be local but location-enabled. We saw the power of social media in Obama’s 2008 landslide victory. In 2012, location-based apps and technologies will play a central role in how campaigns are organized, managed, and ultimately won. Much of this will be visible through mobile apps and location-aware browsers. Activists and volunteers will be more empowered. Voters will be more engaged in the moment, right down to casting their votes. Behind the scenes, though, we’ll see massive new sets of data available to campaigns for targeting, empowerment, and optimization. The party, candidate, and/or cause that has the best handle on geolocation will have a measurable advantage. (The Elections app will soon be updated for 2010.)

4. Finding Green Businesses: The web has effectively replaced the paper Yellow Pages as a way to find local businesses and services. However, this “stationary web” experience is quickly being supplanted by the mobile web and mobile applications, which give us access to this information when we most need it. The Yelp and Around Me apps are popular ways to find restaurants, coffee shops, or hotels wherever you are, but what about green-rated businesses? Greenopia has transformed its printed, local guides into a dynamic, nationwide mobile application that lets you find local, green-rated businesses in any category. No more paper and a much better experience. The Green Map app is another that facilitates discovery and connects us to local green environments.

5. Traveling More Efficiently: We’ve had access to GPS navigation systems and static traffic information for some time, but only now are we seeing the full potential of these technologies. With access to more detailed traffic information that is specific to your route and updated in real time, we can minimize congestion and maximize traffic flow (as much as physically possible). The new turn-by-turn MapQuest 4 Mobile app is a good start, as you can get traffic alerts specific to the route you program. However, user-generated information from apps like Trapster and Waze can crowdsource more specific details, such as whether to avoid an intersection due to a toxic chemical spill. Or, if you want to avoid automobiles altogether, Google Maps makes it easy to use public transportation and take a bike.

6. Scanning for Ethical Products: With online shopping, we’ve become accustomed to reading reviews and making comparisons before we buy. This can now be done in the physical world through games like MyTown and services like Stikybits. By scanning a product barcode using a smartphone camera, you can unlock a treasure of additional information (not to mention deals) that can help with your purchase. This might include where it was produced, how far it traveled, the reputation of the manufacturer, chemical contents, carbon footprint, or the full lifecycle analysis. Location-aware applications can also transform commerce itself by giving us better access to local inventories and locally-produced goods. Whether it’s fruits and vegetables or books and electronics, if something can be found within blocks of your current location, it makes no sense to ship it from afar.

7. Networking Neighborhoods: One of the hottest categories in geolocation is neighborhood networking. The vision for many of these apps is to strengthen the very fabric of our communities. With DeHood, you can keep track of what’s happening in your neighborhood, share your favorite places, and grease the wheels for actually meeting people. After all, if you’ve made contact through the app, it’s a lot easier to say “Hello” in the real world. Blasterous is another that lets you share information locally, whereas BlockChalk does this on an anonymous basis. Finally, NeighborGoods uses your street address to facilitate one-to-one borrowing and trading of useful stuff. In the end, making connections with your neighbors can lead to safer, more productive, and more sustainable communities.

8. Tracking Environmental Disasters: The size and scope of environmental disasters appears to be growing. In 2008, we had the Tennessee coal ash spill, which was billed as “the largest environmental disaster of its kind in the United States.” And that was before we realized it was three times bigger than originally estimated. More recently, the BP oil spill set daily records for “largest environmental disaster in the U.S. ever.” In each case, geolocation technologies can be used by engaged citizens to monitor and track the effects. They can be used by response teams to coordinate containment and cleanup efforts. Ultimately, these technologies can be used to accurately measure the size and impact of a disaster in order to better understand its damages and costs.

9. Viewing the World Through an Eco Lens: Augmented reality (AR) follows geolocation as one of the hot trends in mobile technology. It enables you to view the world through a smartphone camera (or similar device) and see layers of geo-specific content or information. One of the most popular apps is Layar, an augmented reality browser/platform that lets you choose specific data layers or experiences. The potential for green- and cause-related content is tremendous. You might view green-rated businesses, LEED-certified buildings, or virtual GHG emissions as they enter the atmosphere. Combined with smart meter technology, you could see the most efficient and inefficient homes around you in real time. And for the cynics among us, you could view our mountains, forests, rivers, and oceans as they once were…before the effects of climate change and so many environmental disasters.

10. Capturing the Moment: Better access to information about what’s happening around us—right now—can dramatically improve quality of life. This sense of “geospatial awareness” is possible through today’s smartphones, whereby a piece of content or information—a moment—is captured and preserved based on the unique time and place in which it occurred. It is essentially to document spacetime. Protests, natural disasters, sporting events, parties, political crises…real-time information about anything happening anywhere at any time, as well as the history of what happened. This will take several years and a number of different applications to realize. In the end, though, it will revolutionize how we access and consume content. It will complete the democratization and decentralization of news and information…based on time and location.

Cautionary note: Privacy is the single biggest issue in the LBS industry. It’s important to understand what information you are sharing with regard to your location and with whom.

Author’s note: We’ll be hosting geolocation events for Social Media Week in Los Angeles this September. This is the third in Max Gladwell‘s #10Ways series of distributed blog posts. It was published simultaneously on as many as 300 blogs.