Google has acquired the Zagat Survey restaurant guide business. The company says Zagat will become a cornerstone of its ‘local’ offering, providing Google users with reviews, ratings and insights.
Zagat was founded by Tim and Nina Zagat more than 32 years ago, expanding to operate in more than 100 cities worldwide.
In a blog post, Marissa Mayer - Google’s VP of Local, Maps and Location Services - said “The Zagats have demonstrated their ability to innovate and to do so with tremendous insight. Their surveys may be one of the earliest forms of user-generated content - gathering restaurant recommendations from friends, computing and distributing ratings before the Internet as we know it today even existed. Their iconic pocket-sized guides with paragraphs summarizing and ‘snippeting’ sentiment were ‘mobile’ before ‘mobile’ involved electronics. Today, Zagat provides people with a democratized, authentic and comprehensive view of where to eat, drink, stay, shop and play worldwide based on millions of reviews and ratings.”
[Google blog]