Waze forum

My wife just told me that Google bought Waze for 1.1B.

Congratulations Ehud and clan!

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.
https://encrypted-tbn1.gstatic.com/imag ... ZSm3h7JRJQ
That is not a good day.

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?

Most questions can find their answers in this forum :
https://world.waze.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=12&t=51811
---------------------------------------------------------------------------
Re: Waze joins Google
by shirlig » 11 Jun 2013, 19:03

Hi guys!
These are very exciting news indeed!
We'll do our best to address all your questions here.

Basically, as Noam mentioned - nothing really changes in our workflow and in our work together.

enhket wrote:
How will waze and google merge their maps? Will we still have to edit?
This will waze to grow even faster! Congratulations again

Waze maps and Googles maps stay separated and it is not allowed to use google maps data to edit Waze maps.
However - there is going to be a significant focus on the enhancement of the map editor and new tools will be available to us - yes, that includes google's aerials and street view !

I was satisfied by Noam's post in the Waze Blog. The rationale seemed very reasonable and simple. We can argue the fine points and everyone has preferences, but his point about other options (IPO) are true.

Ericular wrote:This really is a bummer for me. ...

So overall I'm worried about the future of Waze. And I feel less excited to continue with the cleanup of my neighborhood, with the possibility it's all for nothing.

How's everybody else feeling?

I think a lot of editors will feel apprehensive like you. Seems perfectly normal. I wouldn't worry about it too much until Waze addresses the editing community. Uncertainty will make people wonder if they should keep going. I would just continue as normal and have fun with it!

She subscribes to news alerts, probably from the Google Tool Bar.

There is an article here... but it is not absolute:
http://gigaom.com/2013/06/09/looks-like ... 3-billion/

and

http://www.forbes.com/sites/markrogowsk ... s-company/

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

What a shame. I see no huge advantage to any of the three major buyers. I despise Facebook and refuse to have an account, so I go bye-bye. Apple buys - could remain autonomous, and actually be the replacement for the awful Apple map app. Google buys - it could remain autonomous, but the only advantage here would be that we could actually use Google maps legally to update streets.

The big benefit of waze over other software is the more accurate arrival time based on my speed and road conditions. The GPS DVD in my Tundra is awful, not accurate at all, and no way to update. Waze is more intelligent.

What will I do with my extra time? Oh, the agony.......

Oh well, guess I'll just put the car charger away. At least I won't have as many bruises on my arm from my wife hitting me for inputting problems on waze. I'll just have them from inputs to gasbuddy.

banished wrote:Pay to go: Exporting Waze IP costs Google NIS 800m

http://www.globes.co.il/serveen/globes/ ... 1000908884

I originally thought that the next step would be to move the corporation out of Israel but just last month they said that isn't going to happen.