{"id":15332,"date":"2013-07-19T15:06:53","date_gmt":"2013-07-19T19:06:53","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/?p=15332"},"modified":"2013-07-19T15:29:09","modified_gmt":"2013-07-19T19:29:09","slug":"love-hate-relationship-zagat-gets-increasing-visibility-in-5-star-carousel","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/blumenthals.com\/blog\/2013\/07\/19\/love-hate-relationship-zagat-gets-increasing-visibility-in-5-star-carousel\/","title":{"rendered":"Love-Hate Relationship? Zagat Brand Gets Increasing Visibility in 5-Star Carousel"},"content":{"rendered":"

I did not notice this before but as the new Local Carousel takes on the 5-Star treatment, it appears that the Zagat brand is taking on a higher profile or at least its Z is.<\/p>\n

This seems odd to me given Google’s move away<\/a> from the Zagat rating system and having\u00a0laid<\/a>\u00a0off all of their temporary Zagat workers and replaced them with full-time workers from Frommers. Business Insider\u00a0noted<\/a>:\u00a0“The future of\u00a0Zagat\u00a0book production looks extremely bleak,” says a source. \u00a0“The\u00a0whole division as currently structured seems to be on death watch. Lots of chatter about outsourcing.<\/em>”<\/p>\n

It all becomes weirder when you realize that they then turned around and\u00a0sold<\/a>\u00a0Frommer’s back to its original founder.\u00a0It sounds more like a soap opera than a business transaction but at least they\u00a0got<\/a>\u00a0a lot of data.<\/p>\n

\"carousel-only\"<\/a><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

As David Mihm<\/a>\u00a0asked in this recent comment<\/a>:\u00a0Hard to say whether Zagat or Frommer\u2019s was the bigger waste of money for Google\u2026especially when you take into account all of the integration and dis-integration costs. I wonder if anyone on Wall Street is considering Marissa\u2019s track record here WRT her spending spree at Yahoo?<\/em><\/p>\n

The Zagat name and logo is mentioned at least 3 times in the brand panel as well (go figure – don’t ask me to explain Google’s thinking. $20 million here, $120 million there….is data and the Z really that valuable?):<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\"Joe<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I did not notice this before but as the new Local Carousel takes on the 5-Star treatment, it appears that the Zagat brand is taking on a higher profile or at least its Z is. This seems odd to me given Google’s move away from the Zagat rating system and having\u00a0laid\u00a0off all of their temporary …<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":262,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[16],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-15332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-reviews"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t