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Understanding Facebook's Waze

Rumors have been flying for the past week that Facebook is in advanced negotiations to acquire Waze, the crowdsourced maps and navigation system...  But why would Facebook want to acquire Waze? Most articles have been giving the simple answers that Facebook wants to "expand its mobile expertise," add maps to Facebook Home, "map out local search and ads," "speed up their mobile ad revenue stream," and so on. While these are all good things, they don't really explain why Waze in particular is worth the rumored price.  I think that there are three big reasons that Waze would be a strategic acquisition for Facebook: Mobile stickiness, social location and commerce support....

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