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Google Buys Waze

i suppose it depends how Google use it. i think theyll just use it to make their own navigation better and keep it free to the user instead of it being bought over by someone who wants to charge a subscription for it :)
 
It's been reported that part of the reason why facebook didn't close the deal was that they wanted to move Waze to the USA. Google offered more money, to leave them alone and give them youtube like independence (at least in the short term).
 
Yup. Google will make some mental amounts of money from this crowd-sourced info and in return we'l get a better service. Soundz gud2me :)
 
Seems to be useless in the UK. It's got London, but there's no roads there according to Waze. Useless in China as well. I guess it would be ok in the United States, as most of this cloud stuff is. Useless elsewhere.
 
Hopefully, Waze remains as a standalone for a long time to come. I find Waze does a much better job of finding me routes around traffic than does Google Navigate. I'm sure Google will use this to improve Google Navigate though too.
 
I see this as a philosophical purchase mentioned at google IO 2013. When the maps team was revealing the new maps, they talked about how there isn't google maps anymore. Now there are billions of versions of google maps as locations that are unique to you will populate the map based on your history, connections, etc. That's kind of how waze approaches mapping.

Additionally, waze is easily #2 in mapping. And this prevents any other corporation from becoming #2 by simply writing a check. And puts distance between the combo of #1 (google maps) and #2 (waze) and whoever is in third place (Nokia via their NavTeq?? Bing?? Mapquest??)

**btw, LOL and WTF now.....Nokia bought NavTeq in 2007 for US$8 Billion!
 
lexluthor said:
Hopefully, Waze remains as a standalone for a long time to come. I find Waze does a much better job of finding me routes around traffic than does Google Navigate. I'm sure Google will use this to improve Google Navigate though too.
Click to expand...

This is the reason I am using Waze right now. Better routing through traffic, better display of traffic information and the ability to automatically change your route en route in response to changing traffic conditions.

I would actually hope they can incorpoate the best parts of Maps into Waze and vice versa.
 
Actually, Nokia Maps was awesome when it came out as Ovi Maps. Not sure now since I don't have an updated Nokia phone (the last one I had was the 5800).
 
chanchan05 said:
Actually, Nokia Maps was awesome when it came out as Ovi Maps. Not sure now since I don't have an updated Nokia phone (the last one I had was the 5800).
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I remember leaving my 5800 on overnight to download complete maps of the countries I visited most often.
 
Yeah i had the N95 (such a breakthrough phone, pity about the o/s lol) i remember having to download big map files for it :)
 
I miss the ability to have my then Aussie girlfriend be the voice I listened to. (They had an app where she had to read the script of "turn left", "in 100 meters", etc. and that turned into a voicepack)
 
I hope that either the map mode shows up in Waze, or Google Maps gets Waze's nav info.

I love Waze but really wish they had a map mode that shows me my route on the map and traffic conditions on it and conditions on alternative routes.
 
Anyone have a prediction for the long-term (three+ years out) here?

Short-term:
I predict that google will be true to its word and let Waze stay in Israel and operate somewhat autonomously while sharing back-end technology to improve both google and Waze.

Long-term:
I don't see how it makes sense to keep two separate divisions running doing the exact same thing.
 
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