Waze: driver-generated live map starts in the U.S.

Waze is a free service to its user so the obvious question is “how do you make money?”, something we asked to Waze CEO Noam Bardin who answered: “Having a live map is a very valuable asset. We are already receiving demands from third parties to license the data we have built in Israel”.

While Noam Bardin and his team (25 people) are just getting started in the United States, they already have plans to launch in Europe, “probably in the last quarter of 2009, if not, definitely in the first quarter of 2010”, said Bardin.

Waze is obviously an interesting example of a new way to build maps and real-time traffic information based on a free, valuable service. Its U.S. success will now depend on the company’s marketing know-how to replicate the fast consumer adoption experienced in Israel.