Google to Buy Zagat

[evergene]

"Google has agreed to buy Zagat, the guide to restaurants around the
country, in an effort by the search giant to expand its local
offerings."
http://dealbook.nytimes.com/2011/09/08/google-to-buy-zagat/?hp

[Mark Mellin]

In article <dvrh679458as3ttpu...@4ax.com>,

In the AP coverage found in the Santa Rosa Press Democrat,

<http://www.pressdemocrat.com/article/20110908/WIRE/110909592/1350?Title=-Google-buys-restaurant-review-service-Zagat>

they note:

"Google's stock rose $2.69, or 0.5 percent, to $536.72 in midday trading
Thursday.

Shares of OpenTable Inc., which provides ways to make reservations at
restaurants along with diners' reviews, fell $7.06, or more than 11
percent, to $55.67."

I'm missing what direct effect Google's purchase of Zagat would
have on OpenTable. Can anyone enlighten me?

- Mark

--
Mark Mellin ULmar 9 - 5470
Mailstop 408-85 Menlo Park, CA 94025-3493 USA

[Peter Lawrence]

Maybe OpenTable was another suitor for Zagat.


- Peter

[Tony Lima]

Zagat is a gateway to the restaurant business. While Google
probably intends to make much of the content available
online, my guess is that they are also after the restaurant
database. I think the markets are saying that Google may
set up a competitive reservation system, probably centered
around Google Maps. But this is all speculation on my part
-- if I knew any actual facts I wouldn't be able to tell
you! - Tony

[Golden California Girls]

On 9/8/11 10:43 AM, Mark Mellin wrote:

> I'm missing what direct effect Google's purchase of Zagat would
> have on OpenTable. Can anyone enlighten me?

Advertising revenue. Where will it go? Doesn't matter they do different
things. But when that x% advertising budget is put out by each restaurant
owner, which *one* is going to get the business.

[sf]

Will the idiots who think Zagat means anything still think so after
seeing it littered with ads by Google?

--
I love cooking with wine.
Sometimes I even put it in the food.

[Al Eisner]

On Thu, 8 Sep 2011, Tony Lima wrote:

> Zagat is a gateway to the restaurant business. While Google
> probably intends to make much of the content available
> online, my guess is that they are also after the restaurant
> database. I think the markets are saying that Google may
> set up a competitive reservation system, probably centered
> around Google Maps. But this is all speculation on my part

Seems reasonable, however. By the way,Zagat already requested enough
personal information for online use to dissuade me from such use. No
doubt, as per the other thread, it will get worse with google.

> -- if I knew any actual facts I wouldn't be able to tell
> you! - Tony

If you knew any actual facts, you probably wouldn't be joining the
rest of us in posting to ba.food. :)
--

Al Eisner
San Mateo Co., CA

[Steve Pope]

Al Eisner <eis...@slac.stanford.edu> wrote:

>Seems reasonable, however. By the way,Zagat already requested enough
>personal information for online use to dissuade me from such use. No
>doubt, as per the other thread, it will get worse with google.

I'm now glad I never entered any personal info into Zagat.

Steve

[Tony Lima]

Making me wonder how much I've given them over the years.
Thanks for the tip (although it's undoubtedly too late to do
anything about it by now). - T

[Steve Pope]

sf <sf.u...@gmail.com> wrote:

>Will the idiots who think Zagat means anything still think so after
>seeing it littered with ads by Google?

Not all Zagat products were worthless. I found the New York Food
Lover's Guide to be worthwhile. It is a guide not of restaurants, but
of specialty stores and the like.

I expect Google will just shutdown this type of product as "non-core".

The restaurant guides were indeed pretty worthless, other than as
a source of basic information such as addresses.

Steve

[James Silverton]

Tho' I do eat out in the Bay area, I have not used the local Zagat guide
much. I have found the one for Washington DC to be quite useful and
reliable [that means "agrees with me" :-) ]. It also does not always
follow the idiosyncratic opinions of the Washington Post food critic,
Tom Sietsma. I sometimes wonder what sort of people used to write to
Zagat? I have a favorite Pho restaurant that is usually crowded but it
has never been rated by Zagat.

--

James Silverton, Potomac

I'm *not* not.jim....@verizon.net

[sf]

On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 20:37:33 +0000 (UTC), spo...@speedymail.org
(Steve Pope) wrote:

> sf <sf.u...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
> >Will the idiots who think Zagat means anything still think so after
> >seeing it littered with ads by Google?
>
> Not all Zagat products were worthless. I found the New York Food
> Lover's Guide to be worthwhile. It is a guide not of restaurants, but
> of specialty stores and the like.
>
> I expect Google will just shutdown this type of product as "non-core".

I'm confused. Why would Google *buy* Zagat if they're just going to
shut it down?

>
> The restaurant guides were indeed pretty worthless, other than as
> a source of basic information such as addresses.
>
> Steve

[Ciccio]

On Sep 11, 4:26 pm, sf <s...@geemail.com> wrote:

> I'm confused.  Why would Google *buy* Zagat if they're just going to
> shut it down?

Sorta like when GM bought urban transit systems and just scrapped
them...then they could sell more buses and autos.

Ciccio

[spamtrap1888]

On Sep 11, 1:37 pm, spop...@speedymail.org (Steve Pope) wrote:

Zagat guides were a distilled yelp before there was a yelp. There may
still be value in a distilled yelp -- yelp discounts only the single
review reviewer. Yelp still contains plenty of useless reviews by
people who don't know wtf they're talking about.

[Steve Pope]

sf <sf.u...@gmail.com> wrote:

>I'm confused. Why would Google *buy* Zagat if they're just going to
>shut it down?

Why would HP buy Palm and shut it down?

Google only wants a tiny fraction of Zagat and mostly they wanted
to keep it out of the hands of their competitors.


S.

[Todd Michel McComb]

In article <j4jtrr$m26$1...@blue-new.rahul.net>,

Steve Pope <spo...@speedymail.org> wrote:
>Why would HP buy Palm and shut it down?

My "favorite" recent corporate purchase is Microsoft buying Danger.

Good thing US capitalism is good for everyone.

[sf]

I'm still not getting the point about Zagat. Google makes money by
advertising and Zagat will be a good advertising vehicle, even if it
isn't good for much else.

[Steve Pope]

sf <sf.u...@gmail.com> wrote:

>On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 18:20:22 -0700 (PDT), Ciccio

>> On Sep 11, 4:26 pm, sf <s...@geemail.com> wrote:

>> > I'm confused.  Why would Google *buy* Zagat if they're just going to
>> > shut it down?

>> Sorta like when GM bought urban transit systems and just scrapped
>> them...then they could sell more buses and autos.

>I'm still not getting the point about Zagat. Google makes money by
>advertising and Zagat will be a good advertising vehicle, even if it
>isn't good for much else.

You could be right; I know nothing about Zagat's page-views,
hit-ratio, click-throughs or whatever the metrics are these
days. All I know is their content quality is way down in the Yelp
range.

I *assume* Google hopes to go after Opentable with this move,
and while the Zagat purchase would hardly seem to advance that
goal, it could easily be hyped in that direction. And at the
same time, anything of actual value Zagat has been doing is
probably toast.


Steve

[Steve Fenwick]

In article <j4k05k$n1i$1...@blue-new.rahul.net>,

Wasn't Oracle (well, Larry Ellison) trying to buy PeopleSoft
specifically to shut them down?

<http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/18839395/ellison-oracle-peoples
oft-combo-makes-sense.htm;jsessionid=zyUJXflIMKquNzVuGXcEYQ**.ecappj02>

Steve

--
steve <at> w0x0f <dot> com
"Life should not be a journey to the grave with the intention of
arriving safely in an attractive and well preserved body, but rather to
skid in sideways, chocolate in one hand, sidecar in the other, body thoroughly
used up, totally worn out and screaming "WOO HOO what a ride!"

[Al Eisner]

On Mon, 12 Sep 2011, Steve Pope wrote:

> sf <sf.u...@gmail.com> wrote:
>
>> On Sun, 11 Sep 2011 18:20:22 -0700 (PDT), Ciccio
>

>>> On Sep 11, 4:26?pm, sf <s...@geemail.com> wrote:
>
>>>> I'm confused. ?Why would Google *buy* Zagat if they're just going to

>>>> shut it down?
>
>>> Sorta like when GM bought urban transit systems and just scrapped
>>> them...then they could sell more buses and autos.
>
>> I'm still not getting the point about Zagat. Google makes money by
>> advertising and Zagat will be a good advertising vehicle, even if it
>> isn't good for much else.
>
> You could be right; I know nothing about Zagat's page-views,
> hit-ratio, click-throughs or whatever the metrics are these
> days. All I know is their content quality is way down in the Yelp
> range.

Quite the opposite. Yelp is basically a dumpster for garbage -- it
takes a lot of effort to find anything useful in it (I don't deny that
it's there if one perseveres). My impression is that the majority of
Yelp posters simply want to see their "stuff" on the Internet. Zagat
does not attract such people, because it is anonymous. Also, there is
a threshold for the number of reviewers, and the reviewers take the
task seriously. In general, I find that the Zagat averages properly
represent consensus opinion. (If there are widely divergent views,
that is flagged.) There are some problems -- for example, certain
inexpensive places tend to develop cuts and get wildly over-rated
(In'n'Out is an example). Also, the consensus reflects the diners in
a particular city -- it that city is relatively unsophisticated about
dining, one might wonder why a rather ordinary place rated well. But
that's basically just a renomalization between locales. The brief
information in their descriptions is generally enough to tell me if
I would find a restaurant at least interesting. (That is VERY difficult
to attain with Yelp.)

In general I've found Zagat guides to major locations to be useful
compendia of places to consider, especially in the absence of other
information (such as a trusted reviewer or a reliable Usenet group,
if such a thing actually exists). I should note that I've only used
the actual books, which limits locations; I don't use the online
service, due mainly to intrusive registration requirements.

> I *assume* Google hopes to go after Opentable with this move,
> and while the Zagat purchase would hardly seem to advance that
> goal, it could easily be hyped in that direction. And at the
> same time, anything of actual value Zagat has been doing is
> probably toast.

Ah, but Google is simply trying to take over the world. Cue the "evil"
thread (no, actually, please don't!).

[sf]

On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 04:00:52 +0000 (UTC), spo...@speedymail.org
(Steve Pope) wrote:

> I *assume* Google hopes to go after Opentable with this move,

To buy? *That* would be a smart move... IMO.

> and while the Zagat purchase would hardly seem to advance that
> goal, it could easily be hyped in that direction. And at the
> same time, anything of actual value Zagat has been doing is
> probably toast.

[sf]

On Mon, 12 Sep 2011 11:04:19 -0700, Al Eisner
<eis...@slac.stanford.edu> wrote:

> Quite the opposite. Yelp is basically a dumpster for garbage -- it
> takes a lot of effort to find anything useful in it (I don't deny that
> it's there if one perseveres).

True. Yelp reviews are garbage for the most part, but that's how I
rate peer reviews in general. At least with salaried newspaper
columnists, I get to know his/her tastes and how I agree/disagree with
them in general (same with movie reviews - ie: if he hates it, I'll
probably love it). Yelpers sound like internet blowhards who have an
axe to grind or a place to pump up for personal gain.

[Golden California Girls]

On 9/12/11 1:57 PM, sf wrote:
> True. Yelp reviews are garbage for the most part, but that's how I
> rate peer reviews in general. At least with salaried newspaper
> columnists, I get to know his/her tastes and how I agree/disagree with
> them in general (same with movie reviews - ie: if he hates it, I'll
> probably love it). Yelpers sound like internet blowhards who have an
> axe to grind or a place to pump up for personal gain.

You give them far to much short shift. They represent the average of the
lower class with a dull palate. If you want to find cheap abundant stuff
that is better than Kal-Kan then you use Yelp. It is exactly the same as
seeing if the parking lot at a place has a lot of cars. You would be
better off with an AAA guide than Yelp. But that is how all social media
works, lowest common denominator.

[Dan Abel]

In article
<nospam-1954F8....@reader80.eternal-september.org>,

Steve Fenwick <nos...@nospam.invalid> wrote:


> Wasn't Oracle (well, Larry Ellison) trying to buy PeopleSoft
> specifically to shut them down?
>
> <http://www.crn.com/news/channel-programs/18839395/ellison-oracle-peoples
> oft-combo-makes-sense.htm;jsessionid=zyUJXflIMKquNzVuGXcEYQ**.ecappj02>

That wasn't my remembrance. I worked for Sonoma State University. We
were using PeopleSoft, with Oracle as the database. I retired in 2005,
about the same time that Oracle acquired PeopleSoft. It appears:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PeopleSoft

that PeopleSoft is still operating as a separate entity, although now
owned and operated by Oracle.

--
Dan Abel
Petaluma, California
ba.food "fructose nanny"

[Peter Lawrence]

Hmm... Yelp has given, overall, a very solid 4-Star rating to Donato
Enoteca in Redwood City. So I guess that's just popular with the lower
class that has a dull palate since most Yelpers that have dined there (300
Yelp reviewers) seem to enjoy it a great deal. I'll keep that in mine. Thanks.

;)


- Peter

[Serene Vannoy]

Both my school (CSU East Bay, nee Hayward) and my kid's (Berkeley City
College) use PeopleSoft for their student-services online portals.

Serene

--
http://www.momfoodproject.com