Facebook acquired Instagram back in April of 2012. While that acquisition started out with talks of $1 billion, it eventually dropped to $750 million. As of today however, it is looking like Facebook may be getting ready to make another $1 billion deal. The latest company is Waze and is it being reported the two companies are in “advanced talks.”
The details are coming by way of Reuters who have said the talks began six months earlier and at present “due diligence is underway after a term sheet was signed.” As one often expects to hear in situations like this, neither Facebook or Waze have offered any comments on the situation.
For those unfamiliar with Waze, this is a navigation app. But unlike some of the others, Waze takes advantage of the social side. They tout themselves as being a “community-based mapping, traffic and navigation app” and offer features such as real-time road closure reporting and re-routing. While Waze has been around for a while now, they have tripled their user base over the course of the previous year bringing the user count up to 45 million.
Aside from Instagram, Facebook also shelled out some big bucks for Snaptu in 2011 ($70 million) and Face.com in 2012 ($60 million). That all being said, and speaking as an occasional Waze user, we can only hope that if this acquisition goes through — the service remains largely the same.
I like Waze, but I’ll uninstall it if Facebook buys them.