Saturday, September 10, 2011
The search engine Google is committed to the location. Just closed the purchase of Zagat guides with recommendations on hotels, shops, restaurants, movies and most recognized U.S. services. The sale price has not been made public.
Zagat born in 1979. The guidelines were created by marriage and Google. They have more than 10 million customer ratings and professionals around the world. Google has announced the purchase through your blog .
The director of the company will be Bernardo Hernandez , Spanish businessman who also maintain his position as Director of Emerging Products Marketing at Google. Hernandez was one of the creators of idealista.com and head of Android, Google’s mobile. Previously served on the founding team of the Spanish web 11870 and is the head of Hotpot , social recommendation service from Google. The purchase of the company, which is also printed guides, due to the desire to free Google searches based on geolocation.
The company tried in 2009 to acquire the retail and entertainment guide Yelp , but negotiation was unsuccessful, she says the blog Techcrunch . Since then, relations between the two companies have not been very buoyant, especially when taken literally borrowed the Google database Yelp recommendations to provide more packing their Places. Marisa Meyer, vice president of the company’s official blog says that Zagat is now the “cornerstone” of the local services of Google, the next big target of the giant California after the search and advertising. “With Zagat won a top team with extensive experience in this sector, more than anyone in the industry,” says Meyer.
In 2008, Zagat was valued at $ 200 million, has offices, as well as in New York, United Kingdom, Japan and Canada. Then the marriage founder, Tim and Mina tried to sell the company, but the global economic crisis fustró the initiative, the newspaper has The Wall Street Journal .
The Zagat phone application is currently one of the most popular. In addition, marketing is a location-based emerging industries on the Internet, where Google and Zagat faces Foursquare, a service that combines fashion with air promotions fun and Facebook Places , the competitor created by the social network.
