Google finally buys Waze

The anticipation was so high regarding the acquisition of Waze. Facebook & Google both were on the race of buying Waze. 

Please also read: Google & Facebook are on a bid to acquire Waze, another high valued acquisition in the industry.

Finally its Google who becomes the winner in the tempted race. 

Google has purchased Waze, the company that makes the popular social traffic app, but did not disclose terms of the deal.

Google confirmed the purchase in a blog post on Tuesday: "The Waze product development team will remain in Israel and operate separately for now. We’re excited about the prospect of enhancing Google Maps with some of the traffic update features provided by Waze and enhancing Waze with Google’s search capabilities."

As the industry follower, to me its the Google Map that has pushed away Facebook from the competition. Though the deal is not yet revealed by any of the parties, but our assumption says it not less than $ 1 billion .With the help of the traffic update features of Waze, Google Map will definitely bring something very out  of the box for the social map users. 

Courtesy: Mashable.com

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David Karp: Why I Sold Tumblr

In an interview Thursday with Charlie Rose, Tumblr founder David Karp opened up about the $ 1.1 billion acquisition everyone’s talking about. 

Inc. users have been getting to know David Karp since Tumblr burst on the scene a few years ago: His prodigious worth ethic; his favorite Tumblr; and even his modeling career. Now that he has sold Tumblr to Yahoo, his is in demand everywhere. On Thursday, he sat down with Bloomberg TV's Charlie Rose Thursday night to discuss Yahoo's $1.1 billion acquisition, why he dropped out of high school, and how he plans to preserve Tumblr's authenticity.

Here are some of the highlights.

On how Tumblr got involved with Yahoo in the first place: 

"We started conversations about working with Yahoo in November of last year. After a few months, we knew there was a lot we were going to be doing together, regardless. We knew we were going to be working together. That's when Marissa [Mayer] showed up in New York and started to walk me through a story of how we could do even more together."

Why Yahoo is a good fit for Tumblr:

"[Yahoo] was a company with a legacy doing exactly the same kind of stuff we're hinging our business on--creative brand advertising. They were the original digital media company. They took a different approach to media. They approached media as an editorial team that created content and built creative brand advertising on top of that content. That's a big part of the future of Tumblr's business. That's something they've built out technology for and something they have advertiser relationships around and something they have a whole big honking salesforce for. What Marissa showed me and what their team showed us was an opportunity for Yahoo to help us fuel in a huge way the development of that network and the development of our ad business."

Tumblr's introduction of ads:

"It's very native advertising. The advertisements fit into spots where we already promote content. We already promote the best of Tumblr and use that as a place for people to discover things they wouldn't have seen otherwise. We'll roll in advertisements into those spots where we promote organic content."

Why it was the right time to sell:

"I was not expecting to sell the company this year, certainly wasn't looking to sell the company. This was a really, really remarkable opportunity that presented itself. This was an unbelievable opportunity to shortcut a lot of the very hard things that we're about to be going through."

Why he dropped out of high school:

"[Computer programming] wasn't in academia, and that was really the reason for me to drop out of school. It wasn't, 'Screw this.' It wasn't that I was bored. It wasn't that my friends were so lame. I was really enjoying school, but back in 1997 and 2000, when I was in high school, there wasn't computer science education in high schools in New York."

On the future of Tumblr:

"Hopefully we get this right, and Tumblr will be home to the most aspiring and talented creators all over the world. That's something we've already started to do. Regular people in the world, right now, they spend a huge amount of time in front of their televisions consuming premium content, some would call it, stuff produced by publishers, networks, studios. If we're not already there today, certainly five years from now, I expect the vast majority of the content we enjoy not to be produced only by a handful of creators who are selected and supported by those big studios."

Courtesy: www.inc.com

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Google & Facebook are on a bid to acquire Waze, another high valued acquisition in the industry.

The buzz of the hot high valued acquisition of Tumblr is not yet over fully and another buzz has started spreading like viral move. 

Read also: 7 top most reasons behind Tumblr acquisition by Yahoo!

There is much high anticipation in the social media industry that Google & Facebook are in a race of acquiring Waze, a popular mobile mapping application based in Israel.

According to Mashable, Waze has been in talk for a possible

acquisition with Google & Facebook for as much as $ 1 billion. Besides, it is confirmed by the relevant stakeholders that Waze may look for an acquisition price of more than $1 billion. Google and Facebook are both reportedly interested in the social navigation app. Earlier this year, Apple was said to be interested in owning Waze  for a similar price. 

Google & Facebook are yet to decide and close the deal. On the other hand , Waze is trying to ignite a biding war to drive up the price. Sources think, if Waze does not get desired price, it may back off the deal talks and use media to leverage more venture funding.

Its not hard to comment why these two giants – Facebook & Google are getting crazy to have this deal in their favor. Both these network are competing each other over their dominance on mapping service.  

Few facts about Waze:

• Founded - in 2007
• Founder -  Ehud Shabtai, Amir Shinar, Uri Levine,
• CEO - Noam Bardin
• 40 million registered users
• Headquartered in Israel

Brief on Waze:

Waze is like Apple Maps or Google Maps in that it lays out directions for drivers on a street grid. It also has voice navigation. In addition to providing users with directions, it lets users scan real-time traffic information provided by other Waze users who are driving on the same roads.

A Waze driver a few miles ahead of you, for example, could report an accident and that cars aren't moving. Another might tell you where a cop is hiding around the bend. 

Though there have some weaker points of Waze, still as the big players are in a battle of acquiring it, there must have some positive things that override the negative parts whatsoever. 

Photo Credi: Allthingsd.com, Google.com, Waze.com

Courtesy: Mashable, Business Insiders

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Yahoo! opts for buying the growing blogging platform Tumblr

In a deal that would vault Yahoo into the premiere league of social media, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer is said to be closing in on a $1 billion acquisition deal with David Karp, the CEO of New York-based Tumblr.

Details of the talks leaked out earlier Thursday via AllThingsD, a site which prides itself on its Yahoo sources in particular. A later report in AdWeek, via its own sources, cited $1 billion as the figure currently under discussion. Coincidentally, that is said to be the valuation Tumblr was going to get at its next funding round.

Both sites were cautious to emphasize that the talks could come to naught. Mayer is clearly interested; she's known and admired Karp's New York-based site for years. Tumblr and its 107 million microblogs would add another 15 billion pageviews a month to Mayer's hoard. Most important of all, it could make Yahoo look cool again.

SEE ALSO: Future Growth Potential of Tumblr

Given its aging audience, Yahoo's biggest problem with advertisers right now, the hunt for cool companies is high on Mayer's agenda. That would be why she offered $30 million to a startup run by a charismatic 17-year-old.

The question remains whether Karp is ready to sell, and whether he believes Tumblr has a better path ahead of it as a media company without Yahoo's help. (Naturally, we've reached out to both companies.)

Tumblr hasn't put a step wrong in the last few months, as far as investors and marketers are concerned, and it's growing like a weed. It's also hitting all the hot button tech and social media targets. Mobile audience overtaking web audience? Check. Ads on mobile? Check. Great shareable memes such as White Men Wearing Google Glass? Check. A platform so cool the White House is forced to join it? Check.

A $1 billion price tag would make Tumblr the biggest purchase since Facebook bought Instagram last year — although that deal ended up costing closer to $715 million, thanks to slumping Facebook share prices.

While we update this story, let us know in the comments: would these companies make a good match? Or should Karp stay independent?

Photo: JOHANNES EISELE/AFP/Getty Images

Courtesy: Mashable

BY CHRIS TAYLOR       

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Uprising Bangladesh:Outsourcing; the next big remittance source

Inspired by the patriotism lately , I started contributing some little things for my country. Basically I have started highlighting all the impact full positive thing that are being taken place in Bangladesh. Twitter is the medium where I am micro blogging the positive thing giving a hash tag of #UprisingBangladesh.

In continuation with that, I am going to share a sudden experience that I have had today. Though, its bit unusual that instead of twitting, I am going to share it in detail. The reason being, the simple incident that touched me so badly, that I couldn't help myself but writing it to let people know.

I have just checked in to Rangpur, one of the seven divisional headquarters of Bangladesh and also recently declared city corporation,  due to some official urgency. Rangpur is not at all a happening city to live. In fact few years back it was called "monga alaka" due to extreme drought.  Unlike Bangladesh , as a whole an agro based economy, Rangpur had to struggle a lot to produce any sort of agro product during a large period of time of the year.And as a result, people had to leave way below the poverty line. 

Unable to make any income, people used to migrate from here to other cities in search of some work that can let them to earn some livelihood. People from other districts, used to recruit Rangpur people as labor. Government along with different human activist groups used to come here by collecting donation from  reach people of the society and distribute among the impoverished people . Rangpur was such a nightmare of this country.

So I am here due to some professional urgency. Though there is a company owned bung-law here, I checked in the best hotel of the town called Hotel North View. Its literally the best one with all the modern appliances like - LCD tv monitor , Air Condition etc. In one sentence , its very slick.

I entered the hotel bit late. It was around 12 am at night. Eventually, receptionist guy was not readily available. So I had to wait a little. While waiting, as usual, was browsing my tab.As I completed the formalities, a boy of the hotel was helping me carrying my luggage to the room no 707. 

The boy was hardly 5 feet height, very thin; bit fair complexion with few beard. He was wearing an uniform of the hotel. A sky blue shirt; black trouser and a pair of sandal. An ideal attire of a hotel boy.We were waiting in front of the lift. 

Suddenly he asked pointing to my tab " Sir, is it iPad ?" I was bit surprised hearing the brand name iPad from him. I replied very consciously with having concern whether he'll understand or not : "Its Galaxy Tab" . He then replied enthusiastically , "Samsung Galaxy Tab!" I was thinking for a while about what to say? I just nodded with a surprise smile on my face and the lift door opened.

We entered in the lift and it started moving up. He again asked a question "Sir , did it cost 54 k BDT?" . Then I thought, ok, this boy somehow is attached with gadget either he has some sorts of involvement with gadget business or he knows from his peers. We both remained silent and reached to our destined floor.He was walking in front of me.

I could not resist myself, but told him "I can see that you have a good interest in gadgets! " In reply he said , "Though I am poor, I have deep interest about updated gadgets"! He continued , " I have a smart phone of LG that I bought spending around 21 k. " I said, "That's pretty cool. LG is in the 3rd position after Samsung & iPhone in smartphone genre. By this time we reached to my room.

I entered my room and he placed the luggage on the corner of the floor. He kept saying, " I am going to have a laptop very soon from one of my brothers." I found the discussion very interesting. So tried to give my personalized opinion, " Get internet connection if you use laptop. So that your laptop will be worth using to you" I told him. 

Real surprise was due for me at that time. He said , " Sir, I do OUTSOURCING work on

internet" . I was speechless for some moment and got very excited with sheer surprise. I enthusiastically praised him a lot and tried to know what kind of job that he does.After talking to him , I got to know, his name is Kabir. He has been working in oDesk for last 3 months as ad poster with multiple accounts. He has already started getting payments and as per his projection, in next month , few more of his account would start earning and then he will leave his current job and will fully concentrate on this outsourcing thing. Besides, he has a plan to establish a business center with a view to having more number of people working together.

Bangladesh is going to be the next best place for online outsourcing. It has already started yielding foreign remittance from this sector. World wide, the reputation is improving. For example, one of the highest ranking holders female in oDesk is from Bangladesh. Clients over the world are also becoming more confident on Bangladesh. In December'12 an event of world Outsourcing Summit took place in Dhaka, Bangladesh. 

So all this signs are basically favoring Bangladesh to become the next comfortable out sourcing destination for the world.Again getting back into Kabir. Its not an exceptional case. Rather, Kabir is actually representing the awareness level of this particular prospect in Bangladesh. Bangladesh is the top ranked young country with 70 % of her  population is below 35 years of age. And by rightly exploiting this emerging  prospects this country will definitely progress and up rise defeating all the odds.

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