The Mobile Navigation Application Waze - Case Study Example

The Mobile Navigation Application Waze. The mobile navigation application Waze was acquired by Google in last June. The web giant closed the deal at $1.1billion, report says. Google is getting benefitted from this acquisition. It is helping Google to improve its own mapping and navigation system. Face book also was one of the bidders for this acquisition but lost it to Google. But United States Federal Trade Commission is inspecting the acquisition process because they think there was some violation of Competition Law. UK office of Fair Trading and the Israel Antitrust Authority are also took interest on investigation because they also belief the same. Facebook was also planning to buy Waze at a price of $ 1biilion which would have made them more popular than Google. Waze was founded in 2007; it makes mobile applications which helps finding routes and direction. It got 47 million users in among 193 countries. The CEO of Waze said before the acquisition that Waze is the only real competitor of Google in mobile market. (Musil 1) Trend 2: Major News Source 1: “Now, Google Maps will notify drivers about more traffic jams as well. Google announced Tuesday that its mobile maps will now include real-time updates about accidents, construction and other potential sources of traffic snarls. The information will come from the 50 million users of Waze, the social-mapping app that Google bought in June for $1.1 billion. Google Maps already had some real-time traffic data from third-party providers and by pinpointing Android users' GPS signals to estimate congestion on highways. But now that data will be bolstered by reports from actual drivers on the roads. Israeli startup Waze has built a vast network of motorists who crowd source such data as commuter routes and road closures to help each other outsmart traffic jams in more than a dozen countries. Frequent users can even earn badges and real-world prizes. Waze won an award for Best Overall Mobile App award at the 2013 Mobile World Congress. Apple and Face book were reportedly interested in buying the company before Google snapped it up. Starting Tuesday, Waze users' reports on road conditions will appear on the Google Maps app for Android and iOS in the United States as well as Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, France, Germany, Mexico, Panama, Peru, Switzerland and the UK. Users of Waze apps will now benefit from Google services as well. The Android and iOS versions of Waze have been updated with Google Search to help users find local businesses and landmarks. And Waze's crowd sourced Map Editor now includes Google Street View and satellite imagery.” (http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/20/tech/mobile/google-waze-mobile-maps/) Major News Source 2: “Google’s motto is “don’t be evil.” But its recent acquisition of Waze, reportedly for $1 billion in cash, shows that just because you’re not evil, it doesn’t mean you can’t be aggressive in pushing the boundaries of the law, Steven M. Davidoff writes in a Deal Professor Column in The New York Times. The question now is whether the United States government will push back and force Google to give back its new toy. Waze is yet another one of those blockbuster deals for a technology company with little or no revenue that makes you jealous. Five-year-old Waze has just 110 employees, so Google appears to be paying almost $10 million per employee. As for profits, Waze’s chief executive, Noam Bardin, has said, “This is Silicon Valley. We don’t talk about those things here.” Right. Google is paying top dollar for Waze because it is at the intersection of two hot fields: map search and social media. Users download Waze’s app to their phone and then supply information about locations, routes and traffic, making the maps more intelligent. And Waze has the usual phenomenal growth in users, with 50 million worldwide. This is a field where there is believed to be oodles of money to be made in related advertising.” (http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/daily-report-google-acquisition-of-waze-may-draw-more-u-s-attention/?_r=0) Trade News Source 1: The Office of Fair Trading (OFT) will investigate Google's acquisition of Israeli mapping app maker Waze to assess its impact on competition in the UK. The British regulator will decide whether the acquisition will have any effect on the mobile mapping sector under the Enterprise Act. The OFT would identify whether the acquisition will generate revenue of more than £70m ($108.8m) from the UK or could lead to the search engine giant gaining more than a 25% share of the market. (http://www.cbronline.com/news/social/googles-waze-acquisition-under-oft-scanner-280813) If it is found to be violating competition laws, Google could be ordered to divest part of its stake in the market to ensure a level playing field for competitors. Google bought Waze for $1bn (£640m) in June 2013. Waze, which claims to have about 47m users, generates maps by utilizing satellite signals from Smartphone. Founded five years ago, Waze's app combines online maps with updates from other users regarding traffic jams, road works and accidents. Earlier in August, Google said it would integrate reports from Waze users into its own maps. The US Federal Trade Commission has already started its own investigation into the acquisition. (http://www.cbronline.com/news/social/googles-waze-acquisition-under-oft-scanner-280813) Image Page supporting the Trend: Waze, an Israeli mobile satellite navigation application, seen on a smartphone. Source: http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/09/google-is-close-to-acquiring-waze-a-rival-in-maps/ Works Cited Musil, Steven. Google reportedly close to $1.3B acquisition of map app Waze. Cnet.com. 9 June. 2013. Web. < http://news.cnet.com/> GOOGLE’S WAZE ACQUISITION UNDER OFFICE OF FAIR TRADING INVESTIGATION.28th August 2013 Web. Daily Report: Google Acquisition of Waze May Draw More U.S. Attention. 19th June 2013 Web. < http://bits.blogs.nytimes.com/2013/06/19/daily-report-google-acquisition-of-waze-may-draw-more-u-s-attention/?_r=0> Griggs, Brandon. New Google Maps can help you avoid traffic, August 20, 2013 Web. < http://edition.cnn.com/2013/08/20/tech/mobile/google-waze-mobile-maps/> Section 2: Google Glass Trend 1: The world of the 21st century exists in a highly competitive environment, which is powered by rapid growth and filled with fast paced development The tremendous penetration of the internet in the last couple of years along with the rapid development of various kinds of technological gadgets has resulted in the process of faster and better connectivity in the markets around the world. The global connectivity has helped in developing interconnectivity and linkage among the markets around the world, and has successfully transformed the world into a well connected single entity. It is relevant to mention that the better levels of technology based connectivity are resulting in the successful diffusion of various global trends, which emerges from various markets around the world. Because of faster evolution of the globalized trends, the consumers are getting increasingly aware of their needs and wants. It needs to be stated that the better and well developed connectivity is helping in the process of rapid dispersion of global trends to the emerging markets from the well established markets, thereby creating the opportunity for development of consumer demands. The technology and gadgets in today’s world is evolving on a daily basis. The evolution is happening as a direct outcome of the focus on the factor of innovation of incremental as well as disruptive nature by companies around the world. Talking about the important trend that is happening in the technology and gadget sector of the advanced markets, attention needs to be given on the article of popular new daily Business Insider. The article which was titled ‘Google Glass is the Biggest Trend at New York Fashion Week’ revealed that the Google Glass has become an object of technology based fashion in the popular fashion show of New York Fashion Week. The article highlighted that in the event of the New York Fashion Week, the Google Glass was tried and used as a test drive by various popular and eminent personalities of the society like models, magazine editors and even the most popular bloggers for technological trends Trend 2: Major News Source 1: “To sell Glass, its augmented-reality form of eyewear, Google has already tried to make it a fashion accessory and a must-have video device for any parent or sky diver. Now it is also presenting this $1,500 piece of wearable technology as a way to interact with music. On Tuesday, Google will unveil a set of features for Glass to search for songs, scan through saved playlists and listen to music in high fidelity. This can all be done while a user is wearing the lens less frames, which respond to vocal commands and have a small computer and transparent projection screen above the right eye.” (http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/business/media/google-glass-will-expand-its-features-into-music.html) Major News Source 2: “Bundesliga chiefs are considering using Google Glass technology to allow referees to see video replays like television viewers - and prevent future ghost goals. The refereeing howler that saw Stefan Kiessling's infamous ghost goal allowed to stand has sparked debate over the use of video technology." (http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/bundesliga-referees-could-soon-wear-2801927) Trend News Source 1: “Many of us spend a significant portion of our day glued to our Smartphone, or to other connected devices. Reading social media or checking out the weather or otherwise dipping into the wealth of data at our disposal will typically consume all of our attention, making it hard to do anything else.” (http://www.techradar.com/news/video/google-glass-what-you-need-to-know-1078114) Image Page Supporting the Trend: (Source: http://www.techradar.com/news/video/google-glass-what-you-need-to-know-1078114) Works Cited Weisman, Aly. “Google Glass Is The Biggest Trend At New York Fashion Week”. 11 Sept 2013. Houghton. Stuart. “Google Glass: release date, news and features”. 7th November, 2013. < http://www.techradar.com/news/video/google-glass-what-you-need-to-know-1078114> Burrows, Ben. “Bundesliga referees could soon wear Google Glass headsets to prevent 'ghost goals'”. 17th November, 2013. < http://www.mirror.co.uk/sport/football/news/bundesliga-referees-could-soon-wear-2801927> Sisario Ben. “Google Glass Will Expand Its Features Into Music”. 12th November 2013. < http://www.nytimes.com/2013/11/12/business/media/google-glass-will-expand-its-features-into-music.html> Section 3: NFC Technology Trend 1: The trend that is emerging in a big way in the technology and gadget sector is the Near Field Communication (NFC) technology. An article by McKinsey, which is a highly popular global consulting firm has highlighted that the digital marketing will be move on to the era of on demand marketing because of on demand marketing. In explaining in a brief manner about the NFC technology, it can be stated that embedded chips installed in the phones start to exchange data among other objects which have similar NFC tags. The price of the NFC tags is priced at around 15 cents and the price is expected to go down further in the upcoming days (Dahlstrom and Edelman, “The coming era of ‘on-demand’ marketing”). It is highly interesting to state that the near field communications (NFC) technology is expected to increase the level of interactivity between the gadgets of various kinds and will naturally open up a complete new frontier in regards to the retail sector as well as the banking sector. Trend 2: Major News source 1: “Near Field Communications (NFC) technology allows small amounts data to be exchanged when enabled devices are tapped or held closely together or one device is touched against an NFC tag. Although the technology can be found in many Smartphone, credit cards and passports, it has yet to become mainstream. But Singapore's size and willingness to embrace new technology might make it the perfect place to roll out a nationwide NFC network.” (http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24756033) Major News Source 2: “Keys have been a necessary evil for the last century or so, but what if you could unlock your house, your phone or you computer with just your hand? That is what the xNT will enable using near field communication (NFC). Produced by biohacking and NFC-firm Dangerous Things, the xNT is the world’s first NFC-compliant radio frequency identity tag that can be implanted inside your body. Measuring 2 x 12mm the NFC tag is encased in a biologically resistant glass capsule and is looking for $8,000 in funding on Indiegogo to start mass production, with pledges of $99 and up winning you your very own xNT pre-loaded into an injection tube ready for implantation.” (http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/01/dangerous-things-xnt-nfc-chip-indiegogo) Trend News Source 1: “NFC will facilitate transactions valued at $74bn by 2015 as NFC is being increasingly used for the payment of goods in-store and as transport tickets. This is over threefold of the estimated value of this market in 2011, according to a study by Juniper Research. The research firm says the increasing use of mobile devices is driving the mobile commerce market. The study shows that the rapid adoption of mobile devices for commerce-related applications is not just limited to NFC, but will witness significant growth rates in segments such as money transfers, banking, payments and coupons. Juniper research report author David Snow says their report demonstrates the spectacular growth Juniper sees across all segments of the mobile commerce market. "Four of these segments (money transfer, physical goods, NFC and coupons) will more than treble in transaction value over the next three years, whilst digital goods, banking and tickets will still on average, double over the same period," adds Snow. The Juniper report cautions that mobile commerce providers need to keep security issues in mind. The study further reveals that SMS is the key to widespread mobile banking service adoption; without interoperability mobile money transfer services will struggle to gain a critical mass of users; and whilst mobile coupons still represent the smallest mobile commerce segment, it is demonstrating the highest growth rate.” (http://www.cbronline.com/news/tech/software/e-commerce/nfc-to-accelerate-mobile-commerce-growth-study-090312) Image Page Supporting the Trend: (Source: http://www.parlevelsystems.com/blog/nfc-and-vending/) Work Cited Dahlstrom, Peter and Edelman, David. “The coming era of ‘on-demand’ marketing.” April 2013. “NFC TO ACCELERATE MOBILE COMMERCE GROWTH: STUDY.” 9th March 2012. < http://www.cbronline.com/news/tech/software/e-commerce/nfc-to-accelerate-mobile-commerce-growth-study-090312> Gibbs. Samuel, “Dangerous Things' xNT: a personal NFC chip in your hand” , 1st November 2013, < http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2013/nov/01/dangerous-things-xnt-nfc-chip-indiegogo> “Could Singapore bring NFC into the mainstream?” 4th November, 2013 < http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-24756033> Read More