Zagat was a loss. But it was also basically a creature of a different era when foodies filled out paper surveys and the results were a pretty decent guide for other foodies. Once it was opened up to the plebes, the results got increasingly bad for that audience as everything got more and more algorithmic. (And, yes, it sort of hung on for a while but it deteriorated more and more.)
Not sure what Google ultimately got out of Zagat rather than maybe a bit of kickstart for restaurant ratings.
My dad, who was an executive at a large non-tech company, used to get restaurant recommendations by calling the restaurant critic at the city's newspaper. Different times in a much less scalable world.
Not sure what Google ultimately got out of Zagat rather than maybe a bit of kickstart for restaurant ratings.