Besides all the social annoying aspects of Waze, lets look at it as a navigator. I've used it extensively and my gf does for traffic purposes. It does a good job at that. However its directions in no traffic are sometimes questionable and it tends to overpromise when avoiding traffic. Furthermore its search capabilities are limited. Punching in addresses works great though.
I feel like the advantage of Waze over Google Maps is really just the traffic aspect. Whereas Google Maps will make me go through the highway and take 40 minutes to get to the airport from work, Waze promises me 28 minutes by a detour. My real arrival time was closer to 32 minutes or so. I tend to suspect Google Maps overpromises in traffic too and it probably would've been more like 45 minutes. I learned a new route too through Waze. The issue with Google Maps is it tends not to like to direct you off the highway despite there being a faster route available. I'm not sure why that is. There are times I *KNOW* for a fact that sitting in 1:45 of traffic to do a 25 mile drive through the 101 in traffic is NOT the solution. I used to detour on my own and never figured out why Google wouldn't redirect.
The thing is I think Google can accomplish what Waze is doing by delivering a superior navigator by simply upgrading their traffic algorithms. Google has more users, and they have tons of users on Latitude already. I'm sure Waze and Google pull traffic sensor information so that's even. So I don't get how Google can't just out-do Waze. Maybe their traffic algorithms aren't there yet, but to me it's almost just switching on a more aggressive re-routing method and you'd have Waze minus the social interactions.
I guarantee you 95% of Waze users just want to avoid traffic. They can forego the camera reports, police reports, accident reports that spam you more than they help. In the end they just want to get from A to B the fastest. So if Google can flip a switch on their maps for better traffic navigation, Waze is dead.
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