Location startup Waytag shortlisted for Global BlackBerry Achievement Awards

The Waytag location naming and sharing app for BlackBerry 10 is a finalist in this year’s BlackBerry Achievement Awards in the Mobile Innovation of the Year category. Waytag is one of 15 apps selected as a finalist. Winners will be announced at BlackBerry Live in May.

Waytag, active in the fast-growing mobile markets of South Africa and Nigeria, enables users to more easily find businesses and people in areas that do not have reliable and accurate systems for fixed addresses. It’s designed to make it easier for people to find and navigate to each other in rapidly developing urban areas where people and businesses constantly move and where street names and numbering are unable to keep up with the pace of urbanisation.

The Waytag app for BlackBerry 10 allows users to create a ‘one-word-tag’ (a Waytag), which acts as a mobile location identifier, helping people find each other and nearby businesses when they are on the move. They can then securely and easily share their location via social media, or via instant message, text or even verbally.

Through its integration with well know global navigation service provider, TomTom, the app enables users to locate more than 30-million points of interest in 106 countries. In addition to TomTom, the app also integrates with Google, which means that once a person or a business is located, users can easily navigate to that location.

According to eCommerce research (capGemini 2012), mobile internet connectivity is driving eCommerce adoption with “twice as many shoppers using smartphone apps in developing markets compared to mature markets”. If eCommerce consumers have a mobile Waytag, they can have their goods delivered to them wherever they are – without needing a fixed address.

Waytag CEO, Warren Venter said: “We are excited to be recognized globally and to be nominated for a BlackBerry Achievement Award. We believe that Waytag’s innovative addressing system will help to change for the better, how people around the world locate each other. It is much easier to navigate on a smartphone using a one word address (e.g. !bobhome) than a 5 line address. Especially in emerging markets where traditional addressing systems are not in place.”

TomTom GM Africa, Danny Grobben said: “BlackBerry has enormous customer support in Africa and with BlackBerry 10, millions of potential customers can have access to Waytag functionality, which will greatly improve how they locate and navigate to each other and businesses around them. We believe Waytag will revolutionise the way we will share our address or location in the future.”