Not too long ago Facebook was apparently in talks with Israeli social mapping company, Waze, for a possible acquisition. If successful, the acquisition would help Facebook further push into mobile.
But it appears the deal, where the social networking giant was apparently willing to cough up anywhere between $800 million and $1 billion, has hit a massive speed bump.
The problem, according to AllThingsD, citing anonymous sources familiar with the matter, isn't so much with what Facebook is offering the mapping startup, it's with Facebook's demand the company relocate from Israel to the U.S., among other things. It's a sticking point sources has raised in the past, saying Waze would like to avoid having its employees fold into Facebook's Menlo Park, Claif. headquarters.
A Waze acquisition would have added a lot of value to Facebook. The social network is trying to break further into mobile, and having a maps feature could allow users to get directions and recommendations without having to exit Facebook's application for a map. It could also be a great method of displaying paid advertisements.
Waze also fits in well with Facebook's social ethos, which suggests that proper application can't simply have a social layer slapped on top of it. Waze, which has a 40-million member user base, works by having users crowd-source traffic information. Users can report police traps, accidents, the general speed of traffic, and, in some cases, allow users to map out uncharted roads.
A deal between Waze and Facebook could still work out, which would be good for a massive tech company which isn't planning to build its own mapping program like Apple did.
But there are other mapping and location-aware options available to Facebook. As The Atlantic's Rebecca Greenfield notes, the social networking behemoth could acquire Glympse, which sends location information to a user's friends, or PlaceMe, which tracks a user's every move, or Playcez, a location-tracking application which keeps an eye on users in aggregate to make recommendations to individual users.
Whether or not Facebook and Waze can overcome their location-based awareness problems remains to be seen, but a mapping, or location-based service, seems to be an acquisition Facebook will likely make further down the road.
