[nlh]

Interesting development (if it's true - as we all learn, deals have a way if changing a LOT at the last minute).

I'd thought a FB acquisition would have been very important for FB -- it would have given them user-provided location info down to the foot for 50M people, which seems to me right up FB's alley (Where are you? Where are your friends? Where are you going? Where are they going?).

For Google, this will obviously cement their domination in the mapping space. As it is, they're so vastly far ahead than others (I think I heard from a friend who works there that they have 10,000+ people on the Maps team worldwide?)

Either way, Waze is awesome and despite the cynicism around what the big guys sometimes do, I can only imagine this making the app better and better.

[acchow]

10000 people on Maps doesn't sound right. There are about 35k Googlers (excluding Motorola). 1/3rd on Maps? Implausible.

[ngoel36]

Google has 35k engineers, out of which maybe 2-3k work on Maps. The 10k number probably refers to total number of workers (mostly contractors) that contribute to Maps: Street View, testing, imagery, notation, etc.

[acchow]

Google has 38,739 employees. 90% of them are engineers? No way. When I was there, MTV campus was like 35% engineering.

From Google Q1 2013 earnings report: "Headcount – On a worldwide basis, we employed 53,891 full-time employees (38,739 in Google and 9,982 in Motorola Mobile and 5,170 in Motorola Home) as of March 31, 2013"

http://investor.google.com/earnings/2013/Q1_google_earnings....

[sa1f]

Maybe only a small portion who are actual developers. Most others might be third-party contractors, fixing map errors, street-view and such.

[turing]

This is correct. According to this article it's 1,100 full-time employees and 6,000 contractors.

http://goo.gl/Xcyu2

[fakeer]

The entire Google Bangalore is about Maps it seems. Anyone here to comment on this?

[gamble]

I'm sure the app will last about as long as Sparrow.

[thedrbrian]

And if people start using it a lot but google cant insert ads they'll shut it down ala good reader.

[herval]

Google COULD insert ads on Reader. My impression is it was killed for not being "social enough" (iow competing with g+)

[mikeash]

Waze already has ads.

[hayksaakian]

Its hard to imagine Google supporting two distinct mapping apps.

[typeduck]

I was really looking forward for Waze's Windows Phone app[1] to come out of beta, but now, given Google's stance on Windows Phone, the app will most likely be killed :/ Atleast with an FB acquisition, it wouldn't have happened. These platform wars getting tiring.

[1] http://betanews.com/2013/04/30/waze-seeks-beta-testers-for-w...