Why Facebook bought Waze

Abstract: According to foreign media reports, according to recent reports, Facebook is negotiating a plan to invest 1 billion of dollars to buy Israeli start-up Waze. Waze is a social-map application for smartphones. The company was founded in 2009, and its investors include the VCS

According to foreign media reports, based on recent reports, Facebook is negotiating a plan to invest 1 billion of billions of dollars to buy Waze, an Israeli start-up.

Waze is a "social" map app for smartphones. The company was founded in 2009, and its investors include the venture capital Victoria Harbour Investment (Horizons Ventures) Kaipeng TDF (Kleiner Perkins). Last July, the number of Waze users reached 20 million. At that time, there was a report describing the Waze:

Waze relies on the community to provide real-time traffic information. If a user uses the Waze service while driving, when a traffic accident occurs, a red line appears behind his car on the Waze map, alerting other users in real time. The user can photograph the scene of the traffic accident and let the other drivers know the cause of the jam. They can also remind other drivers to steer clear of road blocks ahead.

Why Facebook wants to buy such a map app, three people in the industry who don't want to be named say the following:

The first person in the industry:

The reason Facebook bought Waze is because every major High-tech company wants to have its own map service. Microsoft, Google and Apple all have their own map services, and Facebook is no exception.

Waze a public package of map applications. When a user logs on to a Waze service, Waze automatically draws their route when they drive somewhere. They can be known by GPs to get real-time traffic information.

If the user of this service reaches 1 billion, its map will become very accurate. If Facebook is committed to local search services (obviously, they are), it will be helpful to have a map user interface outside the search user interface. And Waze also provides road data, and Facebook can use its own platform to boost its accuracy and value dramatically.

All the big tech companies want to have their own map services, another example: Last week, Alibaba invested 294 million of dollars to acquire 28% of the company's software companies. The software is a German company, in China's mobile phone map market occupies a larger share.

The map service will be a key interface for local discovery and local e-business, and Waze has a good map service that Facebook can take to a higher level.

Conclusion: Waze will promote Facebook's local search service, which is an increasingly important mobile service with huge revenue potential.

The second person in the industry:

Facebook bought Waze to get Facebook home users to stop jumping to Google Maps.

After Facebook launched its main screen app, Facebook home, Google took the strategy: you covered my Android system with a layer of ' skin ' and I let your ' skin ' use Google Maps. Google's strategy is making Facebook feel pressured.

Clearly, the future of the map/local Search service is "social map." What progress will be made in this area over the next few months is noteworthy.

Conclusion: Facebook believes that map services are a core mobile application that it needs to have, even on Google devices. Waze can help it develop a social-mapping software that competes with Google Maps.

The third person in the industry:

The simplest and most important reason for Facebook's acquisition of Waze is that Waze is a great, user-critical mobile app that Facebook desperately needs.

Facebook needs applications that are attractive enough for users to be replaced by built-in apps from Apple or Samsung (or Google) devices.

The second reason Facebook buys Waze is that Waze can let you know where your friends are, which is much more valuable than traffic information. However, unlike the Check-in service (check-ins), Waze users do not need to do anything about it. As a result, the combination of Waze and Facebook's social graph will have astonishing results.

The final reason is that the acquisition of Waze can help Facebook implement its idea of "dynamic messaging"--let "dynamic messaging" know what you're doing, and use it to determine what you need and what you want to see right now. Know your every move, including knowing your current position.

Conclusion: Owning Waze will allow more mobile phone users to visit Facebook, and may even make their core products--newsfeed more powerful.