Dash automobile navigation units received a serious upgrade yesterday with the company opening up their platform to third party applications. This will allow for countless opportunities to add onto the standard waypoint and points of interest applications currently found in car navigation units. The program launches with 5 interesting and useful widgets for your navi unit:

• Coldwell Banker developed a real estate search widget to help you scout out a new home.
• Funambol created a way to link your meeting calendar with your GPS unit to help get you to the right place at the right time.
• MediaGuide made a widget to tell you what song is playing on your radio.
• Weatherbug has created a version of their ubiquitous weather widget for the Dash.
• Trapster released a widget to allow Dash users to alert each other to speed traps via social sharing

So far, the Trapster speedtrap sharing application is the only social media widget for the Dash, but there are numerous possibilities. The Dash could help you to track friends and family and maybe even serve as a walkie-talkie when taking a caravan on a road trip. It could allow you to see reviews and recommendations on restaurants or road conditions from other users in real time.

Dash made an excellent strategic move in opening up their platform for other developers. This brings car navigation units into the larger web ecosystem to drive usage and value through the network effect. These new widgets also take pure navigational data and turn it into useful and actionable information. Should we call it social navigation?

Screenshot of Trapster on Dash after the jump.

Read

• Trapster Looks Out for Speed Traps
• Google Friend Connect Takes On MyBlogLog
• Is there a Twitter Rosetta Stone?