IDG Contributor Network: Why Google’s Waze Rider app will usher in the ‘friend economy’

We’ve already redefined the word friend. It’s a picture you click on at Facebook, even if it’s someone you have never met and never will meet.

Now, those friends could become a little more valuable to you, judging from a recent development at Google-owned Waze.

While apps like Uber, TaskRabbit, and Favor are stuck in the old world of the gig economy -- a way to make a few quick bucks or even earn a living -- there’s an emerging trend that could work even better. Those “friends” could give you a ride to work. The recently announced Waze Rider app is only available to a select number of people in the Bay Area of now. You download the app and wait to get approved. When you find someone going to your same destination, you ping them from the app to get a ride. (The app suggests chipping in for the fuel.)

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