Mark Zuckerberg may yet turn out to be a real businessman and not just a champion of the Internet age and social media. Facebook, Inc. (NASDAQ:FB, FB message board) seems to be on a roll of acquisitions of smaller companies that offer attractive products.
Yesterday Globes, an Israeli publication, reported that Facebook execs attended a meeting with officials from Waze Ltd., a company offering its eponymous crowd-powered and overwhelmingly cute GPS application.
The meeting is rumored to relate either to an acquisition of Waze by Facebook or at least to a substantial collaboration plan. Waze has raised $67 million in capital since its inception in 2007 and currently has about 20 million users in more than 40 countries.
The rumor is coming on the heels of several new Facebook acquisitions, including Face.com, Snaptu and recent news that FB will acquire Threadsy . It may be that Zuckerberg has plans for Facebook that go beyond bringing people closer together and revolutionizing the way you can waste time online.
A future Waze acquisition makes sense in the context of another rumor - that of the Facebook phone. Considering how Waze's navigation app is currently marketed to Android and iPhone users, it's a possibility that Facebook is tucking useful assets under its belt to be ready to roll out a hardware device.
While today the company is instructing its employees to use Android phones instead of Apple Inc. (NASDAQ:AAPL) iPhones (supposedly to get more in-house tester time), the future may see Mr. Zuckerberg ordering his people to switch to a mobile device made by his very own Facebook.
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