Google Set To Acquire Waze Mapping Service For $1.3 Billion | TechTree.com

Google Set To Acquire Waze Mapping Service For $1.3 Billion

Search giant looking to pip Facebook to clinch the deal.

 

Google now seems to be all set to take over the Israel-based mapping service Waze in what is reported to be a US$1.3 billion deal. Interestingly, it was reported around a month ago that the social networking giant Facebook was trying to get its hands on Waze, but for a lower $1 billion. Apple was also said to be in the race, but it seems to have bartered a different type of deal. Facebook's deal is said to have fell apart because Waze would not agree to move its headquarters to California and also because it deemed that the price wasn't right. The deal with Google was easier due to the better price tag and also because the search giant has got an office in Israel and will be able to provide world-class digital maps to integrate data from Waze.

Waze is a free mobile mapping service that improves driving routes, with information from online communities. Using this data, users can be alerted about traffic jams, speed traps, road works, and other hazards via crowd-sourcing. Its source of revenue is location-based advertising. Facebook, which seems to be facing stiff competition from Apple and Google in the mapping department, was trying to seep into the arena with a ready-made resource. A mapping service combined with the power of social networking would have helped FB become a stronger force. It would have also helped the social networking giant earn brownie points from subscribers: Waze boasts of 47 million subscribers worldwide. However, it seems that FB will now have to remain content with Google's mapping service that it currently uses for its subscribers as Google certainly has the better financial muscle to clinch this deal and make its mapping service even better. In case you are wondering about Apple Maps, it is already in a data bartering deal with Waze where it gets to use the data that is crowd-sourced, while Waze gets Apple's digital maps on which the data is superimposed.

Google Set To Acquire Waze Mapping Service For .3 Billion


TAGS: Internet, Sat Nav, Google

 
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