Google acquired Waze for $1.1 billion to strengthen its mapping capabilities. Waze provides real-time crowdsourced traffic data and maps through user reporting on roads. This will allow Google Maps to have more up-to-date traffic and road information compared to its current periodic map updates. The acquisition also helps Google expand into social mapping services and ward off competition from other tech companies. Advertisers will be willing to pay more for the richer local and contextual data provided by integrating Waze's platform into Google Maps.