Castbox Announces Podcast Integration With Navigation App Waze

San Francisco CA, USA—Castbox (https://castbox.fm), an award-winning podcast platform, today announced its integration with Waze, the community-based navigation app owned by Google. The new integration gives drivers an easy way to listen to their favorite podcasts on Castbox while navigating to their destination with the Waze app.

According to the 2019 Infinite Dial report, 26 percent of Americans listen to podcasts in the car. As podcasting becomes a natural extension of consumers’ daily driving habits, Castbox is providing a safer, more intuitive way for listeners to consume spoken audio content during their drive.

“The beauty of podcasts is that listeners can engage in other activities while fully immersing themselves in the content they love, which makes it the perfect medium for daily commutes and long drives,” said Renee Wang, founder and CEO of Castbox. “Our integration with Waze lets us keep our listeners continuously engaged in their favorite shows while ensuring a safer, more enjoyable journey.”

Users that have both apps installed on their smartphones can connect Waze to Castbox by tapping the audio icon in the Waze app and selecting Castbox from the list of supported apps. Once connected, users can access playback controls to pause, skip, or restart podcast episodes without ever leaving the navigation screen. From the Castbox app, listeners can receive turn-by-turn traffic directions while accessing all of the app’s features and podcast libraries. Switching between the two apps takes only a tap.

The new feature was built using the Waze Audio Kit, a developer toolset that allows approved partners like Castbox to fully integrate their apps with the Waze Audio Player. By making it effortless to play Castbox on Waze and run Waze on Castbox, Castbox is giving listeners a continuous podcasting experience before, during, and after their driving commutes.

“Our partnership with Castbox expands on our mission to strengthen the Waze ecosystem by integrating with apps and services that complement and enhance the driver experience,” said Adam Fried, Head of Global Partnerships at Waze. “We’re pleased to be working with Castbox to give our users more ways to enjoy their favorite audio content while they’re on the road.”

The integration with Waze is the latest in a wave of new features from Castbox aimed at bolstering the app’s capabilities and delivering a more robust podcasting experience for power users. The integration follows closely after the launch of Community, an in-app social feed and forum that gives podcasters a community to discuss their favorite shows, join trending conversations, and discover popular new content through crowdsourced recommendations.

About Castbox

Castbox is an award-winning global podcast platform that enables anyone to easily find, access, create, and enjoy spoken audio content. Castbox gives users access to endless content in multiple languages, anywhere, through any device. Castbox’s proprietary technology includes features like curated podcast recommendations and in-audio deep search to customize the listening experience.

About Waze

Waze is where people and technology meet to solve transportation challenges. It’s a platform that empowers communities to contribute road data, edit Waze maps, and carpool to improve the way we move about the world. Thanks to Wazers everywhere, Waze is able to partner with municipalities and transit authorities to reduce traffic and congestion—leveraging current infrastructure while impacting city planning.

A world with better transportation doesn’t have to be in the distant future. By harnessing the power of community to reverse negative trends in transportation, Waze can create a world where traffic is history.