How Google bought Waze(businessinsider.com)
businessinsider.com
How Google bought Waze
http://www.businessinsider.com/how-google-bought-waze-the-inside-story-2015-8
8 comments
Waze disappoints me because it's a great idea in what appears to be the classic Google death cycle. They haven't added anything in years except for ads, the long-standing UI blemishes are never fixed, and recently the servers have started returning errors regularly, which probably means they're about to discontinue it.
It makes a lot more sense to roll Waze's features and data into Google Maps, unfortunately...
They need to integrate more. Google Maps is too conservative with its routing, it tends to stick to highways if at all possible. Waze is far more aggressive, it uses surface roads and side streets to get you out of traffic and to your destination faster, usually 10-15 minutes faster than Google Maps does on my commute home.
" Google Maps is too conservative with its routing, it tends to stick to highways if at all possible."
and waze is far in the other direction, often telling people to get on and off highways repeatedly to save 30 seconds.
In fact, waze estimates it will save time, but in practice, it rarely does for me.
The routing of either is just a cost model for the same path finding engine. Maps seems to try to avoid various types of road transitions, assuming that it's traffic data isn't perfect and these things have some cost (IE traffic lights, etc, which are not accounted for except as average traffic speed) Waze seems to simply assume the apparently shortest fastest path will actually turn out that way.
Waze is often wrong, Maps rarely is. When Waze is wrong, it often takes only as long as Maps does or longer, (i've had Waze tell me to take routes it claimed were 5 minutes faster, that were 10 minutes longer). Maps is usually accurate, but it may leave something on the table.
I'd still rather have the second. Trying to pretend you have good data when you don't doesn't lead to good results. (IE garbage in, garbage out).
and waze is far in the other direction, often telling people to get on and off highways repeatedly to save 30 seconds.
In fact, waze estimates it will save time, but in practice, it rarely does for me.
The routing of either is just a cost model for the same path finding engine. Maps seems to try to avoid various types of road transitions, assuming that it's traffic data isn't perfect and these things have some cost (IE traffic lights, etc, which are not accounted for except as average traffic speed) Waze seems to simply assume the apparently shortest fastest path will actually turn out that way.
Waze is often wrong, Maps rarely is. When Waze is wrong, it often takes only as long as Maps does or longer, (i've had Waze tell me to take routes it claimed were 5 minutes faster, that were 10 minutes longer). Maps is usually accurate, but it may leave something on the table.
I'd still rather have the second. Trying to pretend you have good data when you don't doesn't lead to good results. (IE garbage in, garbage out).
I agree.
Google Maps has gotten worse if anything over time. The mid Atlantic corridor is a great example -- it's real difficult to transit the DC region without being directed to the Baltimore-Washington parkway, although alternate routes exist that are within a few minutes of each other.
The other thing it is missing is the ability to protect traffic over a long road trip. If I'm driving from NYC to Maine, they should know about typical commute cycles. The Microsoft Map desktop app had a manual capability to do that in the 90s.
Google Maps has gotten worse if anything over time. The mid Atlantic corridor is a great example -- it's real difficult to transit the DC region without being directed to the Baltimore-Washington parkway, although alternate routes exist that are within a few minutes of each other.
The other thing it is missing is the ability to protect traffic over a long road trip. If I'm driving from NYC to Maine, they should know about typical commute cycles. The Microsoft Map desktop app had a manual capability to do that in the 90s.
I agree with you concerning Waze routing. If she tells me to discontinue my route and go another way, I've learned to trust her. Also, Waze will let you know how long it takes to make it through an unexpected traffic.
I'd be fine with that, too, as long as Google Maps started to get the routing tools which Waze has.
Basically, I want a mapping app which looks at a long trip and suggests alternate routes based on traffic, accident reports, etc. and is smart enough to weight routes based on historical trends. Waze has much of that but could use the kind of tuning which Google should be really good at and the much larger dataset it'd get if e.g. all Google Maps users were contributing data points.
The only other complaint I have with Waze is the clumsy UI for searching & adding stops (not to mention the 1 waypoint limit), the former being an area where Google should be able to deliver huge quality improvements almost effortlessly.
Basically, I want a mapping app which looks at a long trip and suggests alternate routes based on traffic, accident reports, etc. and is smart enough to weight routes based on historical trends. Waze has much of that but could use the kind of tuning which Google should be really good at and the much larger dataset it'd get if e.g. all Google Maps users were contributing data points.
The only other complaint I have with Waze is the clumsy UI for searching & adding stops (not to mention the 1 waypoint limit), the former being an area where Google should be able to deliver huge quality improvements almost effortlessly.
You described the functionality of Google Maps on my phone. I believe Waze has already been integrated to a large extent.
That's how it seems to me as well. Maps had a smoother, more responsive UI and more developed map/routing data, but Waze had crowdsourced updates for more accurate reporting of accidents and delays.
As a user of both (and investor in neither) it always seemed to me that Waze did the crowdsourcing thing pretty well but their map editing tools were really clunky, UI was much less responsive, and they just didn't have any good way to fund the service (as indicated by the fact that all I ever saw in terms of advertising were little Taco Bell icons any time I was near a Taco Bell).
Google has the backend, the framework for making money from the service, and established routing and mapping systems whereas Waze's more granular and up-to-date info on traffic conditions offered something Maps didn't have.
Basically, the reasons people used Waze over Maps also made good additions to Maps. Would've been fine the other way around too but the reality was that Google was the larger, more established company so in typical fashion, they bought the smaller one to gain their features.
As a user of both (and investor in neither) it always seemed to me that Waze did the crowdsourcing thing pretty well but their map editing tools were really clunky, UI was much less responsive, and they just didn't have any good way to fund the service (as indicated by the fact that all I ever saw in terms of advertising were little Taco Bell icons any time I was near a Taco Bell).
Google has the backend, the framework for making money from the service, and established routing and mapping systems whereas Waze's more granular and up-to-date info on traffic conditions offered something Maps didn't have.
Basically, the reasons people used Waze over Maps also made good additions to Maps. Would've been fine the other way around too but the reality was that Google was the larger, more established company so in typical fashion, they bought the smaller one to gain their features.
I'm with this guy, it alternate-routed me around traffic in Seattle a few weeks ago. Without a question saved me lots of time, and I wasn't the only one snaking down that same exact route.
(There was an accident on interstate 5 south, the backup was obviously affecting traffic on the highway but also the surface streets leading up to the onramp. GMaps had the most direct route, of following the traffic to the nearest ramp as the alternate route, with the default route being a snaking journey down some streets to the next ramp that was beyond the traffic.)
(There was an accident on interstate 5 south, the backup was obviously affecting traffic on the highway but also the surface streets leading up to the onramp. GMaps had the most direct route, of following the traffic to the nearest ramp as the alternate route, with the default route being a snaking journey down some streets to the next ramp that was beyond the traffic.)
Are you using Android? The iOS version has never done that for me but it'd be really nice to know it's likely to show up soon.
Have they really done that though?
I don't have Waze installed on my phone, and I get alerts in Google Maps that are labeled as coming from Waze, so there is at least some integration.
At least some. I get alerts from Waze and some of its functionality right in G Maps.
Jam detection is much better in Google maps now.
But I can't get "waze" directions in google maps (where it has me taking awesomely crazy routes). I also don't get notifications about cars on the side of the road which can be quite useful in certain areas.
The flip side is that (at least in Israel) Google Maps is not taking you through neighbourhoods and such where you really really do not want to be driving through. The IDF has (or had - not sure how current that is) an instruction not to use waze for soldiers in certain areas.
On a couple visits to Israel I used Waze because everyone did. Every single ride I was taken through "crazy" routes that wasted my time. Every 5 minutes i got an ad showing me a small discount for something I don't need if I detour 5 or 20 minutes off my route. I don't get that with Google maps.
On a couple visits to Israel I used Waze because everyone did. Every single ride I was taken through "crazy" routes that wasted my time. Every 5 minutes i got an ad showing me a small discount for something I don't need if I detour 5 or 20 minutes off my route. I don't get that with Google maps.
Always sad when a big company kills an idea, but it happens a lot.
For me the really sad thing about this is thinking about all that community collected data. If a company manages to attract a community of people volunteering and contributing data, it's wrong for that to be taken away. Hopefully it won't be taken away completely in this case, but if the app is phased out, then you'll just have to hope your data shows up within google maps in some form. You're at their mercy. The data was collected by the community but it never belonged to the community.
There's a broad principle here which I think we need to be more collectively savvy about. Community "Crowd sourcing" should always go hand-in hand with community ownership of the data. This means open licensing and offering of bulk downloads. There needs to be increased awareness, and strong campaigns against the behaviour of companies who recruit a volunteer community, but don't give the data back (and I mean give it back properly, in a raw unencumbered open-licensed form)
Waze is not the worst example of this because I think a lot of waze contribution is in the form of very passive data collection. The value comes from algorithms rather than dedicated passionate contribution from volunteers. But even so. The community puts data in. The community loses the data in the end.
For me the really sad thing about this is thinking about all that community collected data. If a company manages to attract a community of people volunteering and contributing data, it's wrong for that to be taken away. Hopefully it won't be taken away completely in this case, but if the app is phased out, then you'll just have to hope your data shows up within google maps in some form. You're at their mercy. The data was collected by the community but it never belonged to the community.
There's a broad principle here which I think we need to be more collectively savvy about. Community "Crowd sourcing" should always go hand-in hand with community ownership of the data. This means open licensing and offering of bulk downloads. There needs to be increased awareness, and strong campaigns against the behaviour of companies who recruit a volunteer community, but don't give the data back (and I mean give it back properly, in a raw unencumbered open-licensed form)
Waze is not the worst example of this because I think a lot of waze contribution is in the form of very passive data collection. The value comes from algorithms rather than dedicated passionate contribution from volunteers. But even so. The community puts data in. The community loses the data in the end.
It's a bit of a shame that they're not independent of Google, but I would have sold out too for that sort of money. I use Waze everyday to avoid traffic and even when I do end up in a jam it lets me know how long I've got to sit through it.
Well thanks to antitrust concerns they are pretty much independent and it still has the same awful UI and bugs of the app before it was sold. Really wish it could benefit from Google Maps (especially for POI search!).
Waze could certainly benefit from some wise UX choices the Google Maps team long implemented. Namely the ability to choose any start location and swap it with the end location to get round trip time estimates.
I think you can do Google POI search from within Waze, no? IIRC you can select from sources like Yelp, Google, Waze's own db etc...
It does give you some options, but then it starts to feel like you're doing the work instead of Waze (why can't they diff the results and just show you the POIs?). The predictive search is just awful, you'll see results from all over the country (and sometimes world!) when you're looking for something a few miles away. There are frequently duplicates in the list and adding to the issue is that the list view also contains so little information that it's hard to see if the result is the one you're looking for. Google Maps absolutely blows away Waze in terms of search UI.
Other gripes:
It suggests using HOV lanes despite not knowing if there is someone else in the car, that can dramatically effect routes (say route A is faster only if you can use the HOV lane).
For ferries (I live in Seattle) it doesn't count the time on the ferry which can give you wildly incorrect time estimates. There's also not a way to ask for a route that doesn't include a ferry (sometimes you can drive around). For example Google Maps suggests 1:04 to get to a spot on Bainbrdige for me right now where Waze says 25 minutes. Considering the ferry ride itself takes ~30 minutes...
Other gripes:
It suggests using HOV lanes despite not knowing if there is someone else in the car, that can dramatically effect routes (say route A is faster only if you can use the HOV lane).
For ferries (I live in Seattle) it doesn't count the time on the ferry which can give you wildly incorrect time estimates. There's also not a way to ask for a route that doesn't include a ferry (sometimes you can drive around). For example Google Maps suggests 1:04 to get to a spot on Bainbrdige for me right now where Waze says 25 minutes. Considering the ferry ride itself takes ~30 minutes...
I agree they need to revamp their HOV situation. In my case, I have a car with an HOV sticker and I don't know if it's measuring HOV lane traffic separately from non-HOV traffic (huge difference in the Bay Area on the 101)
@jonknee is your name jon kneeland? I'm a John Kneeland. Small world!
@jonknee is your name jon kneeland? I'm a John Kneeland. Small world!
I find Google navigation UI more confusing because it puts alternative routes on the map whilst I'm trying to find the route and drive at the same time. I just want a clear bold line showing me where to go. Waze gives me that and only gives out more info when stationary where my brain can handle it.
What do you mean by "pretty much independent" due to "antitrust concerns"? (Source?)
http://www.fairsearch.org/uk-competition-authority-puts-goog...
There hasn't been any news on this for a while, but Waze has also stayed almost exactly the same. There's a little integration the other way (Google Maps sometimes shows incidents reported on Waze), but that's it.
There hasn't been any news on this for a while, but Waze has also stayed almost exactly the same. There's a little integration the other way (Google Maps sometimes shows incidents reported on Waze), but that's it.
I found waze pretty bad at directing you to your target and pretty amazing at locating jams. I stopped using it for directions when I visit Israel although many people there use it religiously. Google maps on the other hand was great at taking me there, but less so knowing about the road conditions. After the buyout I noticed Google maps gets a lot better at knowing if the road is blocked by traffic and how long a stretch of jammed Road takes to clear. I think that marriage worked well, at least for my driving experience.
Yes, Waze is a religion in Israel, perhaps because traffic conditions there are so unexpected. While on vacation there recently I downloaded the app, but found it unusable. The amount of noise in the UI - alerts, ads, IMs from other drivers - is unbearable.
I find that Google Maps is simple, clean, and quite accurate in predicting time to destination. Plus, now it displays traffic jams and incidents signaled by Waze users.
I find that Google Maps is simple, clean, and quite accurate in predicting time to destination. Plus, now it displays traffic jams and incidents signaled by Waze users.
Ads are also a religion in Israel. But the last place I want to see them is when I'm driving. Turn right here to save 5 shekels on some lotion. No thanks, and now I've missed my turn...
For driving near Paris, Waze is incredibly effective. I think it is caused by the mass effect: Paris is a permanent traffic jam and many people are using waze. In less crowded area, data access is not reliable. As a result waze behaves badly, worse than a ordinary GPS with traffic information.
The part about dilution was interesting. I looked at several tech startup IPO filings and it "appeared" to me that most founders ended up with 4 to 7% in equity. Also in nearly all cases, there is one VC who owns more than 20% of the company.
Pretty standard in my opinion. Depending on your negotiability, you're going to get diluted 10-40% in every round. Do that a few times, and you can see where one ends up :)
Better to have a little piece of a really big pie, than to have a really small pie all by yourself.
Kinda pathetic though, isn't it? A group of people devote their lives to a product, working round-the-clock for years, and then reap (relatively) tiny rewards compared to the money man.
Hey! You've just described the money-sucking machine that is Silicon Valley.
What money man are you referring to exactly? Most of the actual money in these situations comes from massive institutional funds where there is no individual man.
One of my closest friends was the founder / CEO of Trapster - Pete Tenereillo - who was crushing Waze for years in total MAU.
Trapster was originally positioned @ speed trap avoidance but as they grew to tens-of-millions of users their feature set more closely mirrored Waze (or vice versa?).
Trapster was eventually scooped up and killed by Nokia (1), is there any true competitor to Waze @ this point?
(1) http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/01/trapster-shutting-down/
Trapster was originally positioned @ speed trap avoidance but as they grew to tens-of-millions of users their feature set more closely mirrored Waze (or vice versa?).
Trapster was eventually scooped up and killed by Nokia (1), is there any true competitor to Waze @ this point?
(1) http://www.engadget.com/2014/12/01/trapster-shutting-down/
I would like to give a counterpoint to the opinion that Google Maps' quality has dwindled, from a developing nation perspective from having used it in India, Kenya, Ethiopia and South Africa.
Google maps in these countries has easily slipped inside the daily behavior of people in these countries in a way that is heartening to see - Drivers use it, students use it, hotels use it to show the way about town, bus drivers use it. It is amazing how accurate it is in these countries. I am thankful it exists.
Google maps in these countries has easily slipped inside the daily behavior of people in these countries in a way that is heartening to see - Drivers use it, students use it, hotels use it to show the way about town, bus drivers use it. It is amazing how accurate it is in these countries. I am thankful it exists.
Can you start turn by turn navigation in those countries? In Vietnam, although the maps are more than good enough, you can only preview a route, you can't actually start the route tracking. This is very frustrating if you're on a motorbike where the voice instructions and vibrations would be very useful.
In Kenya, you can use turn-by-turn navigation on Google Maps, and it works very well, especially within Nairobi. Other towns may not be covered as well (I think), but it works excellently (voice instructions, etc) in guiding you on highways between towns.
I spent time in Nairobi and Cape Town and Apple Maps was equally good (each were better in some areas).
I thought it was quite interesting how quickly Apple has come up to speed. Or maybe how slowly Google has been once they started to dominate.
I thought it was quite interesting how quickly Apple has come up to speed. Or maybe how slowly Google has been once they started to dominate.
I use Waze every day, but I fear that Google will eventually kill off their Windows mobile app because they despise Microsoft. Right now they have just stopped updating it. A shame, really, because it's a solid app.
It will eventually break once they evolve the server-side APIs enough. Foe example, I doubt the Symbian client still works...
The really annoying things is that even after Microsoft makes it painfully easy for Android apps to be brought into Windows 10, Google probably still won't do it.
The really annoying things is that even after Microsoft makes it painfully easy for Android apps to be brought into Windows 10, Google probably still won't do it.
Maybe Microsoft should make it painlessly easy instead?
I depend on Waze every day and its issues are nothing compared to value it provides. Unfortunately it's not integrated into my Model S so sometimes I drive with both the "native" Model S GPS (= Google Maps) and Waze so I can benefit from the greater maps on the 17" screen as well as the better directions from Waze. It's mighty confusing though.
I depend on Waze every day and its issues are nothing compared to value it provides. Unfortunately it's not integrated into my Model S so sometimes I drive with both the "native" Model S GPS (= Google Maps) and Waze so I can benefit from the greater maps on the 17" screen as well as the better directions from Waze. It's mighty confusing though.