
Facebook in talks to buy Waze for $1B - yuvadam
http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4378086,00.html
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ysapir
Waze won the best overall app award at the Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.
This might have raised its valuation since the Apple talks were publicized -
<http://www.globalmobileawards.com/winners-2013/>

If they are doing due diligence now, they would need to look into the GPL
source code. Waze (at least in the past) was based in part on RoadMap which is
GPL - <https://github.com/mkoloberdin/waze/>

That was version 2-2.4. Now they are at version 3.6, so maybe they rewrote the
relevant code.

As far as the R&D centers, this can't be compared, because both those
companies (Snaptu, Face.com) were much smaller than Waze. Facebook may be
interested in an R&D center in Israel too, and is just looking for an
appropriate base on which to build it.

I guess this seems to put Facebook more on a collision course with Google,
after Facebook Home.

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dsrguru
No clue if this will fall through like the talks with Apple, but it would be
awesome if this app became more widely used here in the US. I've heard there
are enough users in Israel that drivers can get up to the minute details on
traffic, road hazards, cops, etc. on any major road. If Facebook integrated
traffic crowdsourcing into everyone's phone, many places would get enough
users for this to become viable practically overnight.

~~~
rajivm
In both LA and SF it's pretty much already like that in my experience; LA
especially it's traveled by word of mouth - probably because driver's are so
desperate to escape the traffic hell.

However, I tend to favor Google Maps unless I'm anticipating significant
traffic because Waze tends to pick "over-optimized routes" (i.e. 5 extra turns
to save 30 seconds). Which is great when you're trying to escape traffic,
annoying when you're just trying to get somewhere normally.

~~~
ja27
I mostly use Waze to get a good ETA and watch for traffic and police when I'm
going somewhere I already know the path to. If I'm going somewhere unfamiliar
or not very popular, [TACO BELL AHEAD!] I don't trust it. I've been burned too
many times when it sends me 10 minutes of of the way because [TACO BELL
AHEAD!] the last intersection before my destination mistakenly doesn't allow a
right hand turn.

I've been kind of hoping they and FourSquare would get together somehow.

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fwr
Somebody tell Facebook there are different amounts of money they can spend on
things before they run themselves to the ground!

~~~
devcpp
Seems like they want to cover ground by buying every single startup that is
successful and remotely related to social networking. This is where the
startup economy falls and monopolies go bad.

~~~
smackfu
Having location information is very valuable for properly targeted local
advertising, and Waze is all about location information.

~~~
jbattle
But getting location information on a facebook app user requires like two
lines of code. I'd do that for a mere 1/4 billion!

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alex_doom
Ugh. I hope not, I don't need Facebook getting more datapoints about my life.

~~~
miahi
I'm a heavy user (more than a year in the top 50 for my region) but I'll stop
using it if it's bought.

~~~
Kiro
And I will start using it so it will even out.

~~~
wahsd
You'll use it when and if Facebook buys it? That makes no sense. I can also
promise you you will stop using it once you figure out that it's not really
useful beyond reporting and being warned of cops.

There are alternatives for reporting cops, but they are also not really all
that great of a tool.

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orangethirty
What the hell? $1B? Who comes up with these valuations?

~~~
manys
$1B = iPhone-only apps Android users have heard of.

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joshmn
So instead of giving directions to a hot hole-in-the-wall coffee shop it'll
show me a Starbucks instead?

~~~
groundCode
and all your facebook friends will get up to the minute information on where
you are and where you are heading to.

~~~
joshmn
Or where you're not heading to. I see it now... "Honey I can't go to your
parents tonight. I'm sick."

"Waze is requesting permission to post on your wall without your permission."
_Cancel_

"We're sorry, but Waze has to."

"Josh found directions to Buffalo Wild Wings!"

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mani27
$1 billion for this app ? Wonder why fb is buying it. FB can build it on their
own. Last year at a hackathon me and my friends made a similar app in 2 days.
The feedback we got from people and judges made us to drop the idea to move
forward with it.

~~~
rajivm
Waze is incredibly powerful if you're in a city with many users / high-density
of cars. If Instagram can be worth $1B, I can certainly see Waze being worth
at least as much. They have both users and awesome technology. Also, it's
really hard to get mapping right (as Apple found out), so if Facebook wants to
enter this space, it would be a powerful jumpstart. (also, the social aspects
of Waze might tie in nicely with FB).

~~~
mani27
Still unsure why fb is buying it. I think Waze doesn't have a great user base
in US. FB can build thier own app.

~~~
wahsd
What are you talking about. There are shit-tons of people where I use it on
the east coast. When I'm in the fly-over states it's not all that great for
speed trap reporting because there's just not the saturation, but it seems to
be spreading quite nicely in bigger cities there too.

Although, I do have to say it feels like there are less users now than before
some of the recent updates that seem to have really kind of messed with the
mapping and routing.

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ynniv
I don't understand the value of Waze when anonymized cellular phone data
provides real-time, high resolution congestion data for any place that has
cellular phones, which is basically the entire globe.

Why do people use Waze?

~~~
wahsd
one feature..... police trap reporting.

With some of the recent updates, mapping and routing has just gotten worse and
essentially useless, so I just use it to tag and be warned of cops checking
speed while using Google for actual directions.

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ynniv
Yeah, that's going to be the first feature removed when someone buys them.
Also not worth $1B.

~~~
dsrguru
No, that feature is the reason Waze has so many users.

~~~
ynniv
I am confident that any company capable of paying $1B dollars for them will
cut it immediately. If that's the core value of the product, it either won't
get bought or won't survive getting bought.

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waltz
This would actually put them head to head with Google on the street navigation
front. One advantage of Waze is how the routes are dynamically updated by it's
own users.

~~~
linker3000
Not by me any more if they're owned by FB.

I dread to think what FB will do/attempt to do with the 'Waze experience' and
the near-realtime info pinpointing all the users.

(Waze Area Manager and non FB user)

~~~
Kiro
What's with the FB hate? I think it's a great match.

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linker3000
I don't participate in the FB ecosystem at all and do not want to use an app
that forces me in - either through a mandatory requirement (..you must now
have an FB account to use Waze..), or simply because I use the app and
therefore FB can identify me by Waze nickname, forum account details and
current location.

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yuvadam
Both previous cases of Facebook buyouts in Israel (Snaptu, face.com) resulted
in closing of R&D centers.

Waze is probably expecting the same outlook if this deal goes through.

~~~
panacea
It's interesting that the big tech sumo-wrestlers seem content to outsource
R&D and then stomp in with huge buy-out sums when something great surfaces.

Apple with its billions apparently isn't interested in exploring disparate R&D
projects beyond their core interests. Microsoft apparently is and isn't having
much luck. Google used to but not so much anymore, and is producing glasses.
Facebook is voraciously subsuming R&D and design talent.</stereotypes>

Does seem like they mainly would prefer to pay an exorbitant fee for the gold
nuggets, rather than fund all the failures in-house.

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jbrooksuk
There buying Waze for one whole Instagram? Ridiculous!

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viame
Escape traffic? The Government says never! City traffic is worth more than $1B
dollars. I am surprised that BP is not buying this to shut it down the next
day.

:D

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BadassFractal
How does Waze compare to the vanilla Android Navigation app as far as avoiding
traffic is concerned?

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raleec
I greatly prefer Waze. The biggest annoyance for me was that Android doesn't
have a way to default to "avoid tolls", so every time I started up, I had to
dig into the settings or risk a momentary distraction putting me on a toll
road.

Waze has more of an interactive experience (with the ability to report hazards
and backups, and some random reward system), but it is more of a focused app
than Google Nav.

But as with anything YMMV (Sorry, obligatory pun)

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alenam
I hope it doesn't happen. Really. Every area of my life is becoming more and
more exposed.

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obstacle1
If you don't use the service, what will this expose?

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drorweiss
Way to go! Waze is a fantastic app. I usually turn it on already on my way to
the car.

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wowfat
Looks like every major mobile player needs a navigation system

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dombili
They really are all in on mobile, aren't they?

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dataisfun
Smart move.

