Not for me. Most aerials in my neck of the woods are clearer and more recent in bing.
!!! Right now in PHX the aerials are (in the map editor) atleast a year old?! At least…maybe more
It’s a bit patchy, though, too. Maybe it wouldn’t make a huge difference. About 50/50.
I recommend that people check out the saga of Google’s Building Maker that was used by Google to crowdsource the creation of thousands of buildings used to populate Google Earth.
https://groups.google.com/forum/#!msg/3dwh/
Google announced a new version of Google Earth and suddenly all the crowdsource models disappeared from major metropolitan areas. Soon after, Google announced the shutdown of Building Maker.
Google’s current crowdsourced map editor is called Map Maker: http://www.google.com/mapmaker
This would have been more interesting if Waze had bought Google Maps. C’est la vie.
The NSA called. We can track you, now.
Not sure what Google will do with waze if they do buy it.
I think it would have been better if Facebook had bought it as they don’t have any sort of map or map editor so they would have kept waze and put in more Facebook stuff which I didn’t have much of a problem with as its kept the same as now, where as Google already have a map and map editor.
So there’s not much need for the current waze app nor keeping its map editor either.
I really can’t see what Google can do with waze other than sell the traffic data to marketing companies and real estate companies to show business where the highest traffic is going past land, but you would get ads based on where you drive via waze traffic data and companies along your route or drive.
It’d be disappointing overall if Google do get waze.
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Google doesn’t need Waze for the traffic content. They have every Android phone in the US to know where traffic is. Their user base dwarfs Waze’s base. My guess is that Google will incorporate the social incident sharing aspects of Waze into Google’s app. I can’t see the Waze app or editor surviving though. I don’t know what the point would be.
Thanks, I had not noticed that part of the deal was for Waze to remain independent for 3 years. I do agree that the future for Waze beyond 2016 looks bleak. Let’s hope that in 3 years, Google will have incorporated the app’s strengths into Google Maps.
Is anyone else concerned with having all of their recorded drives living in a NSA datacenter in Utah? I was wondering if that would drive any loyal Wazers away. :shock:
I think I liked it better when Facebook was rumored to be buying Waze. At least with Facebook you mostly know what you’re dealing with. Google, though… forget all the NSA stuff, Google alone is already well on the way to being Big Brother and knowing what you do every moment of the day. Sorry, guys… enjoy your money but I’m outta here.
It’s now officially announced/blogged/tweeted. We can still chat about it here. No details on the actual amount yet, though.
Yay no more rollbacks plus daily map updates?
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2013/06/google-maps-and-waze-outsmarting.html?m=1
So it seems like we know that Google Maps will get some of the social traffic intelligence from Waze and Waze will get Google search. Those seem like two things that can be implemented fairly quickly and benefit both communities. Beyond that, I don’t think we know much of anything at this point.
The tone of the Waze announcement was much more “nothing will change” then the Google announcement was in my opinion.
Long term, it doesn’t seem to be in either community’s best interest to continue to fragment the editing community between two different map editors. But obviously consolidating these two services into one unified app and editor is a much longer term proposition. I don’t think they can publicly say that is what is going to happen yet without risking alienating thousands of editors that they really need to continue what they are doing.
Think about it though, is there really any practical purpose in an editing community spending time editing a change in one mapping platform when the other mapping platform already contains the change? How they reconcile the current status of both mapping databases though seems like a technical challenge way beyond my comprehension.
That is what I was wondering
Hopefully Google/Waze will have a roadmap soon. The announcement is likely and understandably going to result in numerous editors abandoning both Waze and making updates in the editor. I’m more a fan of Waze than I ever was Google Map Maker and updating the Google Maps. I’ve had updates that are still awaiting review that were made over a year ago in Map Maker. Waze has always been responsive and direct.
Some kind of direction would be appreciated… such as Google’s vector street data replaces what’s presently in the Waze editor… some kind of direction or idea of what to expect. As it stands now Waze saying things will keep running as they are doesn’t really have a convincing ring to it to validate sticking around and updating map data that’s destined for the scrap heap.
Hopefully both parties will figure something out soon after some evaluation so avid editors know they won’t be wasting their time/effort.
Congrats though to the Waze team for being so highly sought after!
I’ve put in a year’s worth of map improvements over the past year. When can I expect my cheque?
I would hope that Google and Waze decide that it is best to keep their applications as separate entities as they have separate functions. To me, Goggle Maps is a search platform. Searching for businesses or activities around your area, and then helping navigate to them with the built-in gps navigation. Waze on the other hand is a commuter GPS routing application first and foremost.
Sharing databases, on the other hand, could be a big improvement for both apps. Sharing traffic information, and real-time Waze alerts across apps would help everybody. I just hope they don’t try to merge google maps with Waze maps. The Waze maps in my area are much better, more accurate, and more current. It can take a few weeks to get a simple road geometry change passed through Google map maker.
I can see removal of Facebook integration with Waze and the addition of Google+, I’m sure most people would not be happy with this that use those features, although inside the Waze app, not much difference would be noticed whether you are using your Facebook contact list or your Google account contact list. I could also see removal of all other search engines except for Google and the Waze internal search engine, and removal of Bing aerials for Google’s.
Still hopeful for the future of Waze. Just hope complete integration into Google Maps does not happen. Any word on distribution of that 1.3 Billion to all the users keeping Waze maps updated and relevant in the mapping ecosytem? I’m ranked around 240 in my state. That should be worth a couple thousand, right? 
While I too would welcome a cash for my time spent, I doubt the various investors like Microsoft who put up actual money, would agree to parting with any of their profit.
Google Maps has the cartography, search, navigation (with somewhat live traffic data viewing), and exploration approach… Waze has search, navigation and live traffic reporting/viewing. The biggest difference I ever saw between the two clients from the navigation sense was that Waze actively wanted you to drive with the app open and ideally think about where you’re going whenever you drive. Google Maps is just there as a tool to use as needed.
With so much in common in terms of basic purposes other than user traffic reporting, I just don’t see how they plan to keep both separate for long.
I don’t see how there is an ounce of difference between Google Navigation, not Google Maps, and Waze as it relates to the intended use of the app while driving.
I hope that functionality of both apps is integrated into one solution. I see no reason why a single app can’t be great at navigation, social traffic, and search all in one. It was the maddening switching between the two apps to achieve all of those things that drove me nuts. The idea of having them within the same app makes perfect sense to me and I hope they do it.
I just think less is more sometimes. One app that does everything is rarely better than an app with a specific purpose that it does very well. Bloat and feature creep can bog down simple functionality fairly quickly. Pretty soon, we will just have one app on our phones.
That is not a good day.