Have You Heard of Waze?
Waze is "the world's fastest-growing community-based traffic and navigation app," and it seems to be at the center of quite an interesting bidding war between Google and Facebook, according to a recent article in Computer World. You can join other drivers in your area who share real-time traffic and road info, saving everyone time and gas money on their daily commute. One would hope they aren't driving when doing all this sharing. (My mind jumps do a day when Google Glass is integrated with something like this, and the roads are never safe again...)
Businessweek said today, citing unnamed sources, that Google is one of multiple companies negotiating to buy Waze and the price tage will be in the $1 billion range.
Only just a couple of weeks ago Facebook was said to be negotiating to buy Waze. This has the makings of something becoming pretty common between these internet giants: A good, old fashioned bidding war.
Does Google Need Another Mapping Service?
Patrick Morehead from Moor Insights & Strategy doesn't think so. He said Google's likely goal is to "disrupt the deal and force Facebook to pay a higher price than they would have paid." But other analysts have suggested that Google may legitimately want it to help them boost their own social networking capabilities.
Who Will Win?
We'll see how it all pans out, but one thing is for sure, it's a good day to be Waze.