[rajivm]

Waze is incredibly powerful if you're in a city with many users / high-density of cars. If Instagram can be worth $1B, I can certainly see Waze being worth at least as much. They have both users and awesome technology. Also, it's really hard to get mapping right (as Apple found out), so if Facebook wants to enter this space, it would be a powerful jumpstart. (also, the social aspects of Waze might tie in nicely with FB).

[swombat]

I thought Apple was pretty bad for having no roads mapped in Belgrade.

Waze tops this, though - there are no roads in London, according to the Waze live map!

[mani27]

Still unsure why fb is buying it. I think Waze doesn't have a great user base in US. FB can build thier own app.

[wahsd]

What are you talking about. There are shit-tons of people where I use it on the east coast. When I'm in the fly-over states it's not all that great for speed trap reporting because there's just not the saturation, but it seems to be spreading quite nicely in bigger cities there too.

Although, I do have to say it feels like there are less users now than before some of the recent updates that seem to have really kind of messed with the mapping and routing.

[k-mcgrady]

Facebook operates worldwide not just in the US.