Mobile satellite navigation start-up Waze launched a global advertising platform on Wednesday, targeting its 30 million users based on their location.
Waze, founded in 2009 in Israel, uses satellite signals from members' smartphones to generate maps and traffic data, which it then shares with other users, offering real-time traffic info.
The quality of data improves as more drivers join the network and use it. The number of users has jumped to 30 million from just 7 million 12 months ago.
Smartphone users can use Waze's service for free and it aims to make money from ads of local merchants and big brands by attracting mobile customers on the road nearby.
Location-based advertising is often seen as a massive opportunity the mobile industry, but so far worries over privacy have hampered its growth.
Waze gets around this by displaying its information from drivers anonymously, with a delay, although members can choose to identify themselves if they wish.
"Waze is right to start building up location based advertising, but it shouldn't have inflated expectations. This is a busy and confusing field, and many advertisers will stick with the big brand players, such as Google and Facebook," said analyst Martin Garner from British consultancy CCS Insight.
Waze says it saw a jump in downloads of its app after Apple chief executive Tim Cook, in an unusual move after the launch of iPhone 5, suggested that customers download rival mapping services like Waze while Apple improves its own maps.
While other satellite navigation providers help drivers find the way to sites they do not know - something a typical driver needs on a holiday or in a new town - Waze aims to save drivers time on their usual routes by suggesting faster, alternative ways.
Waze sees Google as its most direct rival, but in the larger navigation market it also competes with TomTom , Nokia, Garmin and Telenav .
A new app aimed at providing politicians and other government officials with streamlined access to relevant information is currently being trialled ahead of an expected 2013 rollout – by none other than Prime Minister David Cameron himself.
South London-based start-up Adzuna, which specialises in aggregating online data via a vertical search engine, has produced the programme, codenamed "Number 10 dashboard."
The software, currently in beta stage, gives the PM at-a-glance access to a range of real-time and location-specific data, like statistics on employment and housing, as well as offering 'public mood' insight gleamed from social media.
In other words, rather than relying on aides to compile dossiers ahead of political engagements - which carries the risk of both human error and of information being outdated by the time it is presented - Adzuna's system utilises an advanced web crawler programme that draws on a range of third-party sources, like Google for search trends and YouGov for data, as well as compressing important social network activity.
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