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"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," Google's VP-geo Brian
McClendon wrote in a
company blog post announcing the acquisition.
Like Waze, Google Maps' mobile apps provide turn-by-turn
navigation that takes into account traffic conditions, but Waze
sources those signal directly from users who have eyes on the road
and may be more reliable. Additionally those users can report
whether there's an accident in the fast lane or a cop on the
shoulder as well as communicate with other Waze users on the road
(the app features passcode-like safeguards to preclude drivers from
interacting).
That data data on where people are in cars is its primary value
to Google, which has been making a big push to boost its mobile ad
revenue. Earlier this year the search giant revamped how marketers
purchase search ads to base their rates not so much on what device
someone is on when they encounter an ad but on where they are and
how valuable that is to the marketer. Someone down the block, or
driving past the mall, may be more valuable to a brick-and-mortar
retailer than someone else miles away on their couch.
Waze has made a similar proximity-based pitch to advertisers
with the advertising program it
rolled out last fall. Brands like Best Buy and Whole Foods have
run promotions within the app that pop up while users are setting
their routes alerting drivers to a nearby store and dangling a
coupon to get them there. Drivers can then click the ad to navigate
to that store, letting Waze report back to the advertiser how much
foot traffic their ads drove and how many coupons were
redeemed.
"The mapping game is won on data," said BIA/Kelsey senior
analyst Michael Boland. "If you can tell based on someone seeing an
ad whether they navigated to [an advertiser's] front door and show
those conversion metrics, that's the holy grail of
advertising,"
The Google Maps Android app already shows ads, some even
carrying offers (ads within the iOS version are nonexistent), but
could benefit from the addition of Waze's ads. U.S mobile local ad
spending is
projected to cross $16.8 billion by 2017, including $5.7
billion routing to mobile search, per research firm BIA/Kelsey.
The Google spokesperson said the company had nothing to announce
regarding future integrations between Waze and Maps other than what
was mentioned in the company blog post and quoted above.
Acquiring Waze may further distance Google's mobile Maps from
its remaining competitors. In the days after Apple bungled its own
mobile map app, Waze saw its user base
climb by 100,000 new users each day, but Google usurped its
popularity when the company finally debuted the iPhone version of
Google Maps in December.
Apple's announcement on Monday of an upcoming desktop version of
its maps product suggests the company isn't yet ceding competition
in maps to Google. However, any potential entrants, such as
Facebook (which has its Nearby feature), Foursquare (which has made
a big to-do about its local search capabilities) and Yelp (which
rivals Google and Foursquare in local search), face an even steeper
uphill climb.
Maps are only as good as the data underpinning them, and that
data must be collected and updated over years to make sure it's
solid. Google Maps has been in
market for eight years giving Google a direct firehose to that
information). Facebook, Foursquare and Yelp possess some firsthand
geolocation data through their respective check-in and local search
features, but not at the scale of Google.
They could follow Apple's example and
partner with firms like TomTom to siphon that data, but that
second-hand information seems better in a supplementary role. And
anyway what if one of those partners gets acquired by a rival? Waze
was, after all, one of Apple's maps partners.
