Google Buys Waze: Social Mapping App Will 'Enhance' Google Maps
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| Google Ahead |
Waze finally has a buyer. that it had bought Waze, a social GPS mapping app that specializes in real-time crowd-sourced traffic.The price was not disclosed but a report on Monday in The New York Times put the number at more than $1 billion."We’re excited about the prospect of enhancing Google Maps with some of the traffic update features provided by Waze and enhancing Waze with Google’s search capabilities," Brian McClendon, Google's vice president of Geo, wrote in a blog post announcing the acquisition.Waze's product development team will stay in Israel, where the company, now based in Palo Alto, Calif., was founded.Wazers, as they're called, alert each other to accidents, road closures and other things that would potentially slow down traffic. According to The New York Times, Waze says it has 47 million global users.Waze is a free app that makes money from location-based advertising. Techcrunch reported in January that the company's 2012 revenue was less than $1 million.Both Apple and Facebook were reportedly interested in buying Waze. Google's purchase now keeps those rivals away from the app.
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EVEN THOUGH
Google's Not-So-Evil Plan To Lower Your Cable Bill
One of the more intriguing mysteries in the media/technology world is why Google GOOG -0.45% is building out broadband fiber data networks in a handful of American cities. Google says it’s just another attempt to create a profitable new business, but nobody seems to be buying that, judging from a panel discussion I watched at the National Cable Television Association’s Cable Show inWashington, D.C., on Monday.
The most intriguing theory about what Google’s really up to came from Jason Bazinet, an analyst who covers cable, satellite and entertainment at Citigroup C -2.72% Global Markets. In Bazinet’s view, Google Fiber is a regulatory play aimed at driving down the cost of a cable subscription.
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