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Waze's traffic navigation app already shows ads prodding drivers to swing by fast-food joints like Dunkin' Donuts and Taco Bell. Now it's adding a new item to its menu—the ability to place orders at some shops.
On Tuesday, the Google-owned app will start letting drivers purchase coffee and other items from Dunkin' Donuts for pickup along their way. It's the first time that Waze has offered this kind of "order ahead" option, but unlikely to be the last.
If all goes well with the Dunkin' Donuts test, Waze plans to team up with other merchants so its millions of users can order pizza, reserve parking spaces, fill prescriptions and even buy groceries without having to open another app on their phones.
"It could be almost anything that a driver could order ahead and have ready for pick up," said Jordan Grossman, head of Waze's business partnerships in North America.
They should dispatch drones to bring the donuts to your car while you're stuck in morning traffic.
(Score: 2) by nobu_the_bard on Wednesday March 29 2017, @07:04PM (2 children)
Google Maps on my phone has started doing popups when I'm driving lately. No ads yet, but it's been things like "You are making good time!" or something, that covers up the directions. I'm not sure why I'd want the assurances? The display makes it obvious how well I'm doing, and my memory is more than 5 seconds into the past for comparison.
It's only a matter of time before they start adding "content" pop-ups if they haven't already done them and I just hadn't noticed one.
(Score: 2) by Grishnakh on Wednesday March 29 2017, @09:44PM (1 child)
It's weird how different people can have different experiences with Google Maps. I think they make it act differently for different people, perhaps to use some of them as beta-testers or something.
I use it all the time, but the only popups I get are when I cross state boundaries (which I do frequently), or when I reach my final destination. And sometimes to tell me about an alternate route.
(Score: 1, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday March 29 2017, @11:54PM
It's called A/B testing and all the big players do it as well millions of websites and traditional companies. The basic idea is you give ##% of people version A and ##% of people version B (etc...). If the A group performs slightly better, such as by buying 0.05% more often, then version A gets rolled out to everyone. Rinse and repeat over and over again until you've maximized whatever metric you were measuring. The process is often automated for colors, prices, ad types, notification rates, etc...