Google Buys Waze In Bid To Improve Mapping Services

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Wow, if that $1.3 billion figure is even close to being accurate, that is a lot of map making money. :eek:

The deal, for which terms weren't disclosed, follows months of speculation about who would land the startup. Reports later in the day pegged the price at a little more than $1 billion. In recent days, Google was said to be close to a $1.3 billion deal and that Facebook talks had fallen apart.
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I dont think they needed waze but they have to invest that massive stockpile on something
 
I tried Waze on both android (which it locked up frequently on) and iOS (which was fine) because I was under the assumption it would learn my way to work and tell me ahead of time. But that never seemed to happen after a couple weeks.
 
westrock2000 said:
I tried Waze on both android (which it locked up frequently on)..... because I was under the assumption it would learn my way to work and tell me ahead of time. But that never seemed to happen after a couple weeks.
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Must have been your phone. I have a Galaxy S2 and it works flawlessly. It also learned where I was frequently going. I have to stop by my ex-wife's house to pick up the kids after work and after several trips from work it realized this and asked me if I wanted to add it as a place. Personally I think Waze is a great app.

I don't understand why Google needed to gobble them up though. I would think Waze would be pulling from some of the same maps available to Google to navigate by. In fact I have friends that prefer Google navigation. It's not all together bad I personally think.
 
Perhaps Google is gobbling Waze up just to ensure that their competitors doesn't get Waze and improve their own mapping service.
 
Hornet said:
Perhaps Google is gobbling Waze up just to ensure that their competitors doesn't get Waze and improve their own mapping service.
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Exactly. There was a pretty decent seeking alpha article on it recently as well; we all know apple could use something to improve their mapping services.
 
I liked Waze, it seemed very good at rerouting for traffic and letting me know about cops on the road. I hope Google doesn't ruin it.
 
Trimlock said:
I dont think they needed waze but they have to invest that massive stockpile on something
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They were the opposites of each other. Waze absolutely sucks for discovery because they depend on the community to properly fill in landmarks and sometimes it can take months before changes are approved. If you don't know the exact address in most cases finding it is a lost cause. But it's great in getting around traffic.

Gmaps also has discovery issues, but it's nowhere near as bad as Waze is, but it absolutely sucks at routing around traffic, especially if it happens while you are on route. Map updates can take months too and it can be hell trying to convince the editors that a change is necessary sometimes.

It was the one choice that actually made sense out of all of them, minus say going with Microsoft if they were in the running.
 
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