Facebook in talks to buy Waze for $1B

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4378086,00.html

by yuvadam • 13 years ago

62 58 13 years ago

waltz• 13 years ago

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.

linker30002• 13 years ago

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)

Kiro2• 13 years ago

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

jgeorge• 13 years ago

I use waze daily for my commute and it's saved me tons of time. If FB buys it that's the last I'll use it.

(and in response to the "why all the FB hate" comment: I don't hate FB. I used it rather a lot. However, I try to limit the amount of information FB knows about me as much as reasonably possible. Where I am nearly up-to-the-minute, and not only current and historical location data as well as a decent ability to predict where I'm going on most given days, that's too much information for me to willingly hand over to FB. Or anyone.

Waze knows where I am, but not necessarily who I am. FB knows who I am, but not necessarily where I am.

I don't trust either company with both data sets.

willy1234x1• 13 years ago

Couldn't Google just theoretically bake Waze's functionality in Maps and use Google+ for the social layer?

joshmn2• 13 years ago

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

groundCode• 13 years ago

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

joshmn2• 13 years ago

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!"

alex_doom• 13 years ago

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

miahi• 13 years ago

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.

Kiro2• 13 years ago

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

yuvadam• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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.

nir• 13 years ago

Some reports said the main thing delaying the deal is Waze's reluctance to move to Facebook HQ.

alenam• 13 years ago

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

obstacle1• 13 years ago

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

dataisfun• 13 years ago

Smart move.

orangethirty• 13 years ago

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

grzaks• 13 years ago

If Instagram was worth it Waze should cost 10x more at least.

jbrooksuk2• 13 years ago

Zuck did $1B for Instagram didn't he?

manys• 13 years ago

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

netcan• 13 years ago

Obviously, this is not the value of the income stream. Facebook's own valuation is not the value of its current income stream either. These valuations are bout potential and about competition. Potential to have a huge business created around them and fear of the competition buying the target.

IMO, Facebook has two big important things it needs to do: (a) Maintain its position the the social network where everyone has an updated profile & (b) figure out their ad business. Anything with real potential to impact those two is a potentially important buy. Instagram was/is a way to do the first by keeping people's photos on "facebook". Waze is a little less clear, but it has potential to meaningfully impact both. I can think of several paths that the buy could impact either A or B in a way that increases the total value of Facebook by more than $1b^.

I agree that valuations seem arbitrary when it's users, data & synergies instead of NPV (or book value). But that just means it's hard to put a number on it. It's just as hard to say that it's too high as it is to say it is too low.

^BTW, Facebook's market cap is currently $64b. Assuming they belive in that valuation, an acquisition that raises facebook's value by 2% is a good idea.

edwardunknown• 13 years ago

$1B in Facebook stock, it's like monopoly money.

dsrguru2• 13 years ago

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.

colmvp• 13 years ago

It's been pretty useful in my experience on the west coast.

rajivm2• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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.

messick• 13 years ago

Not just "word of mouth", but ABC News (Channel 7) pushes it pretty heavily. In fact, the app has their ads much of the time.

jbrooksuk2• 13 years ago

There buying Waze for one whole Instagram? Ridiculous!

ysapir2• 13 years ago

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.

mani272• 13 years ago

$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.

rajivm2• 13 years ago

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).

mani272• 13 years ago

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.

swombat• 13 years ago

I thought Apple was pretty bad for having no roads mapped in Belgrade.

Waze tops this, though - there are no roads in London, according to the Waze live map!

yen223• 13 years ago

It's not about the app, it's about the users and the data. Especially since Waze's tech relies heavily on user-generated data.

BadassFractal• 13 years ago

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

ysapir2• 13 years ago

In my view, Android does slightly better routing and search. Waze has a much better UI/UX experience.

EDIT: And Waze does not do walking/public transportation directions.

raleec• 13 years ago

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)

drorweiss• 13 years ago

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

fwr• 13 years ago

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

devcpp• 13 years ago

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• 13 years ago

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

wahsd4• 13 years ago

the maps and mapping and location accuracy is not all that good though. If Google Maps allowed some kind of plug-ins or layers that supported speed trap reporting Waze would be done.

Battery suck on Waze for frivolous reasons is massive. No one uses it for much else than cop tracking.... sometimes to send out directions to friends and groups, but that is also something that Google could do when that day comes around when they get their glass studded head out of their nether-regions.

viame• 13 years ago

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.

dombili• 13 years ago

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

ynniv3• 13 years ago

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?

wahsd4• 13 years ago

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.

ynniv3• 13 years ago

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

wowfat• 13 years ago

Looks like every major mobile player needs a navigation system

Facebook in talks to buy Waze for $1B

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