Why Waze has attracted Google - Le Figaro

Google formalized Tuesday the acquisition of Israeli start-up, which has also been approached by Apple and coveted by Facebook.

Few start-ups in the world can claim to have been coveted by the biggest names in high-tech. This is exactly what happened in six months Waze, which has finally agree to sell to Google, after being approached by Facebook and Apple. The amount of the transaction exceeds one billion dollars.

Waze publishes a free GPS navigation application, first on the iPhone, then for Android since 2008. Like other applications of this kind, it calculates routes to follow and shows points of interest nearby. Its strength comes from its community aspect. Rather than relying on expensive card providers like Navteq and TomTom, Waze uses its users. They are the ones who are constantly improving the information available in the application, automatically sharing their journey. On the road, they are also asked to indicate the events they encounter: traffic jams, accidents, police presence or radars. Finally, like Wikipedia, Waze relies on a community of nearly 70,000 volunteers who check the accuracy of the maps and improve.

treasure of personal data

time, Waze has built up a war chest with all the data on the movements of its users. What has been turning heads in Silicon Valley. Discussions have started with Apple. American society has planned to hand over the data to improve the data, after the failed launch of its mapping application, Maps, last September. But she never made a bid. The integration in Waze Plans have been complex, the requirements of the start-up was high. Especially, most of the 47 million users of the application using an Android smartphone, not an iPhone.

discussions have reached a more advanced with Facebook during the spring stage. A possible acquisition would follow the same logic as a year earlier, Instagram. The company Mark Zuckerberg wants to own a lot of Facebook applications powerful rival those of Google and Apple. Waze and seemed the ideal candidate to tackle and Maps and Google Maps. The assumed value of the transaction, a billion dollars, was also stalled on the initial price set for Instagram.

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traffic information and location-based advertising

According to the Israeli press, the negotiations broke down on keeping the center of research and development of Waze in Israel, where the start-up was founded. It is on this issue that Google has won the bet. He pledged to keep the teams in place – a hundred people so far -. During at least three years

motivations Google however appear less clear than those of Apple and Facebook. Google has been trying to deprive them of one of the most popular applications of time and thus achieve a defensive acquisition, as it has done in the past with Motorola. The Internet group said to be interested in the Waze traffic information, which it will use to improve Google Maps. It is already the undisputed leader of the mapping PC and smartphones, but the technology will allow it to add Waze traffic information at a lower cost -. Services increasingly popular

plans are that mobile search is the Web

economic model that was in the process of building Waze can be another explanation for the interest. The CEO of the Israeli start-up, Noam Bardin, indeed sees mapping applications as successors of the search engines. “The plans are that mobile search is the Web” déclairait it recently. According to him, the only research really monetized on the mobile are those that can be geotagged. A real challenge with regard to Google.

According to research firm BIA / Kelsey, localized advertising accounted for 38% of spending on mobile in the U.S. and reach 54% in 2017. This market will increase from 3.2 to 16.8 billion dollars. Waze had just step into this direction by launching late last year an advertising platform called “Waze Ads.” Shops and brands are asked to pay to be on the cards of the application and appear along the routes. Waze shows up to three of these ads on the course. The strength of Waze and able to offer ads on a specific route, not only around, unlike Foursquare and other applications that try to position themselves in this niche.