Google Acquires Zagat
Zagat got googled: Google acquires Zagat Survey, restaurant ratings and reviews since 1979; http://eicker.at/GoogleZagat
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Gerrit Eicker
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Gerrit Eicker
Patch
Can Patch become the Huffington Post of Local News? Generating local advertising revenue for AOL? http://eicker.at/Patch
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Deals Launch
Facebook Deals will be available soon in Atlanta, Austin, Dallas, San Diego, San Francisco; http://eicker.at/FacebookDealsLaunch
Gerrit Eicker
Hyperlocal?
AOL acquires hyperlocal aggregator Outside.in for a merger with Patch. Hyperlocal wishes and dreams; http://eicker.at/Hyperlocal
Gerrit Eicker
Social Internet
Pew (PDF): The internet is now deeply embedded in group and organizational life in America; http://eicker.at/SocialInternet
Gerrit Eicker
Google Self-promotion
WSJ: Google increasingly is promoting some of its own content over that of rival websites; http://eicker.at/GoogleSelfPromotion
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Gerrit Eicker
WSJ: “The Internet giant is displaying links to its own services – such as local-business information or its Google Health service – above the links to other, non-Google content found by its search engine. … Critics include executives at travel site TripAdvisor.com, health site WebMD.com and local-business reviews sites Yelp.com and Citysearch.com, among others. … The EU received a complaint from a shopping-search site that claimed it and other similar sites saw their traffic drop after Google began promoting its own Product Search service above conventional search results. … The issue isn’t entirely new. The company for several years has used prominent links to services such as Google Finance and Google Maps to boost their popularity, with varying results.”
Google: “When someone searches for a place on Google, we still provide the usual web results linking to great sites; we simply organize those results around places to make it much faster to find what you’re looking for. For example, earlier this year we introduced Place Search to help people make more informed decisions about where to go. Place pages organize results around a particular place to help users find great sources of photos, reviews and essential facts. This makes it much easier to see and compare places and find great sites with local information.”
SEL: “The question of Google’s right to refer traffic to its own sites is once again in the center of policy debate. The European Commission is looking at this issue as part of its larger anti-trust investigation against Google. It’s also a question at the heart of the federal regulatory review of the ITA acquisition. … What are or should be Google’s ‘obligations’ to third party publishers? This is the central question it seems to me. – These are all very difficult issues and become extremely problematic at the level of execution. If regulators start intervening in Google’s ability to control its algorithm and its own SERP it sets a bad precedent and compromises Google’s ability to innovate and maybe even compete over time. … It has also been held by courts that the content of SERPs is an ‘editorial’ arena protected by the First Amendment. So hypothetically Google could only show Google-related results and still be within the law. … Google’s dominance of the market may decline in a few years. I’m not a laissez-faire, free-market lover but the market may take care of itself. Facebook and others are working on ways to discover content that don’t require conventional search-engine usage.”
TC: “Displaying local results this way is a little less in your face, but the end result is the same. In both cases, the main link still goes to the businesses’ own websites, but the Google Places links are also prominent. Either way, the message is clear to local businesses: list your profile in Google Places and you will have a better shot at appearing at the top of the first search results page. – Are these results better for users? It depends on how good are the Google Places listings. Some of them are very good, I will admit. But try any local search and I bet you will consistently get Google Places results, sometimes taking up most of page – not always at the very top, but always as a block. They can’t all be better than results for businesses which don’t happen to have a Google Places listing. Remember, Google Places is still fairly new and developing.“
Gerrit Eicker
The News Business
Winer: The paywall may be journalism’s Maginot Line. Time for a philosophy change in the news business; http://eicker.at/1o
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Deals
Facebook goes local business, enables merchants to push deals out to existing and new customers; http://eicker.at/FacebookDeals
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Gerrit Eicker
NYT: “Facebook introduced a feature on Wednesday that will allow retailers and other merchants to offer coupons and special deals through its mobile application, intensifying competition in the market for mobile searches and advertising. – People who use Places, Facebook’s location feature, will see a yellow icon indicating that a redeemable deal or coupon is available nearby. They can then use the application to ‘check in’ at the store or restaurant and show their phone’s screen to an employee to claim their deal. … Mr. Kendall said Facebook would not charge businesses directly to list coupons and special deals through the mobile application. Instead, businesses can purchase advertising to publicize their offerings on Facebook, he said. … Facebook also plans to work with nearly two dozen major chains like H&M, 24-Hour Fitness and McDonalds for special offers. But eventually all merchants and small businesses with a Facebook Places page will be able to offer deals. Facebook’s deals program borrows heavily from location-based social networks like Foursquare, Loopt and Gowalla, which have long been experimenting with similar ways to offer rewards and deals on cellphones. … For retailers, the Facebook feature offers the chance to establish online connections with real-world customers and learn more about them.”
AF: “So far Facebook claims that the number of users who have used the Places application is multiples larger than any other location service. That would lead us to believe that well over 10 million Facebook users have checked in with Places. If enough brands begin to leverage the new Deals platform, this could clearly be a big win for Facebook. Most significant here is that Facebook doesn’t charge any companies to launch deals. – Contrast that with Groupon who goes through the laborious process of negotiating the cost of every deal that they launch with local businesses. While Groupon has an incredible email list of consumers who want to make purchases, Places based deals could prove to fill a much needed niche. While companies can’t ping Facebook users as they walk by their businesses, users can choose to seek out deals that are nearby. … To be clear, Facebook Deals is not the Groupon-killer that some had claimed when we leaked out information last week about the impending launch. Instead, this is a different business model where customers will have to seek out deals through businesses that they become a fan of. Fortunately, many of the companies don’t think it will be long before most Facebook users are seeking these deals out.”
IF: “The most interesting part of the product is that Facebook isn’t taking a cut of revenue for these discounts, posing a challenge to smaller competitors that use deal revenue as part of their business model. On a business’ Places page, they can set up an offer. There are four kinds: Individual deals, which reward a customer if they check-in once. Loyalty deals, which reward customers for a certain number of purchases or check-ins. Friend deals, which reward customers if they bring in extra friends. Charity deals, which allow businesses to donate to charity for every check-in they attract.”
VB: “The social network’s executives said in a press conference that they won’t charge businesses for the deals. – That’s pretty surprising, since deals are seen as the main way for check-in services like Facebook Places (which includes the deals service), Foursquare, and Gowalla to make money. … Update: A Facebook spokesperson just emailed and said that although the deals are free for the program’s initial launch partners, the pricing could change in the future. … Facebook chief technology officer Bret Taylor said that Facebook didn’t create the feature to increase advertising. ‘The main thing is to improve the user experience around our Places product,’ he said.”
pC: “It’s not clear how many people are using its check-in feature, called Places, right now, although if this catches on it will clearly give users a financial incentive to use it. Places was introduced in August. Asked about usage, Zuckerberg only said it was ‘multiples larger’ than other similar services. – Zuckerberg did use the event to provide an update on Facebook’s overall mobile usage, saying that the company now has 200 million users who access the social network ‘across all platforms,’ a figure that has tripled over the last year.”
Gerrit Eicker
Facebook Places
Facebook cements location, Facebook Places as a key feature of future developement; http://eicker.at/FacebookLBS
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Gerrit Eicker
TNW: “Obviously, today’s event cemented location/Places as a key feature of Facebook. Expanding the ability to check-in on Android is an especially good move for Facebook at this point, as is the opening up of its Places APIs to all developers. Before today, the Places platform was simply too limiting to show what it is capable of, and now we should start to get a taste of that potential (or not). … Facebook, for the foreseeable future, is dependent on Apple’s and Google’s location determination. – Of course, once Facebook has that, it then translates that to its own Places database (and/or compares it to the third-party check-in app that is feeding Places) or users can create the venue. This last part was a huge issue at smaller location startups, and Facebook said that it realizes that this will be a hurdle to get over with Places moving forward. … What Facebook will end up doing beyond today, we’ll have to wait and see, but it certainly sounded from my discussions that the wish lists is already quite long, and that Facebook expects that those future enhancements will allow it to dominate this space.“
Gerrit Eicker
Google Street View Deutschland
Google Street View startet in Deutschland. Zumindest startet Google Street View in Oberstaufen; http://eicker.at/Oberstaufen
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Gerrit Eicker
AA: “Google Street View vor dem Start in Deutschland: Die Marktgemeinde Oberstaufen (Oberallgäu) wird ab Dienstag, Punkt 10.30 Uhr, der erste Ort in Deutschland sein, der in dem umstrittenen Dienst zu sehen ist – noch vor Metropolen wie Berlin oder München. … In dem umstrittenen Google Street View-Projekt sieht Oberstaufens Bürgermeister Walter Grath ‘gar kein Problem’. In Oberstaufen – der Ort ist laut Aussage von Bürgermeister Grath ein klarer Befürworter des umstrittenen Internet-Angebots – wird am Dienstag eigens dafür eine symbolische Hochzeit gefeiert. Offiziell. Samt Google-Sprecher Kay Oberbeck und einer Hochzeitstorte.”
SZ: “Die von Datenschützern kritisierte Ansicht von Straßen und Privathäusern soll erst in den nächsten Wochen freigeschaltet werden. Nur in Oberstaufen im Allgäu ist schon die ganze Stadt zu sehen – auf besonderen Wunsch der Gemeinde, die hofft, damit mehr Touristen in den Ort zu locken. … Deutschlandweit hatten 240.000 Bürger Einspruch dagegen eingelegt, dass ihre Häuser in Google Street View zu sehen sein werden.”
SO: “Google Street View ist ein Internetdienst, bei dem sich Nutzer in Fußgängerperspektive durch die Straßen von Städten bewegen und Rundum-Panoramen der Straßenzüge betrachten können. Street View ist bei Datenschützern umstritten, weil es nach deren Ansicht private Details über das Wohnumfeld von Menschen verrät. Bis Jahresende will der Dienst mit Panorama-Ansichten von Straßen der 20 größten Städte Deutschlands aufwarten. Mehr als 244.000 Haushalte in den 20 Städten hatten beantragt, ihre Wohnhäuser in dem Google-Dienst unkenntlich zu machen.“
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Gerrit Eicker
Jarvis: “Germany, what have you done? – Street View is online in Germany and it includes – or rather, excludes – 244,000 addresses that Germans have demanded be pixelated. They have, in their word, demanded their Verpixelungsrecht. … In the land of Deutschnet… Germany has now diminished the public. It has stolen from the public. – This is not a matter of privacy. And don’t tell me it has a damned thing to do with the Nazis and Stasi; that’s patently absurd. If anything, the Stasi would have exercised their Verpixelungsrecht to obscure their buildings from public view, taking advantage of the cloak of secrecy the idea provides. That’s the danger of this. – This is an issue of publicness. These are public visions now obscured.“
Gerrit Eicker 12:28 on 9. September 2011 Permalink |
Nina and Tim Zagat: “Zagat got googled – We are writing to share the most exciting news in our 32 years in business. Zagat Survey has been acquired by another great company, Google. – From the beginning, Zagat Survey has empowered people by providing a vehicle for them to express their opinions. After spending time with Google senior management discussing our mutual goals, we know they share our belief in user-generated content and our commitment to accuracy and fairness in providing users with the information needed to make smart decisions about where to eat, shop and travel. – It is a testament to the knowledgeable consumers who contribute their opinions that Zagat Survey has become an internationally respected symbol of quality. Their experiences, distilled into numerical ratings and concise, witty, quote-filled reviews, will continue to provide accurate guidance for a wide range of leisure activities.”
Google, Mayer: “I’m thrilled that Google has acquired Zagat. Moving forward, Zagat will be a cornerstone of our local offering – delighting people with their impressive array of reviews, ratings and insights, while enabling people everywhere to find extraordinary (and ordinary) experiences around the corner and around the world. – With Zagat, we gain a world-class team that has more experience in consumer based-surveys, recommendations and reviews than anyone else in the industry. …I’m incredibly excited to collaborate with Zagat to bring the power of Google search and Google Maps to their products and users, and to bring their innovation, trusted reputation and wealth of experience to our users.”
pC: “Google … is expanding its push into local content with its acquisition of Zagat, which started out as a New York City restaurant guide in 1979 and now publishes guides in 13 categories and over 100 cities. It’s good news for Zagat, which unsuccessfully put itself up for sale in January 2008, pulling itself off the market six months later when there were no buyers. … Zagat has tried to develop its mobile business. Its app, which costs $9.99 per year, was one of the founding iPad apps. The company announced a partnership with Foursquare for a ‘foodie’ badge in 2010 and also partnered with Foodspotting to use that company’s data and photos. … In the past, Google has resisted the characterization of itself as a content company, but this is a major push into local content for sure.”
SEL: “This is huge news for Google (capital ‘H’) and for local. Google is a content publisher now and the content that Zagat brings arguably closes the gap between Google Places and Yelp. We’ll have to see the implementation. … Beyond restaurants, Zagat also offers ratings and revenues of entertainment venues, wine and travel. The online version of the site has developed a community as well; so there’s a social networking dimension to this acquisition as well as content that Google is buying. … I spoke with Google’s Marissa Mayer and Tim Zagat. They told me that nothing would change in the near term; Google will continue to publish the guides and maintain the subscription product. I asked if Zagat reviews would be imported into Google Places and Google’s response was non-committal. Of course they will; that’s the point of this transaction: the content.”
RWW: “The Google local apps are still relatively barebones compared to dedicated competitors like Yelp and Foursquare. Even recent additions to Google’s dominant Maps tools haven’t made it to mobile yet. But this acquisition, along with Google’s purchase of The Dealmap last month, reveal Google’s hand in the local recommendations game, and it looks like a flush.”
VB: “The move is a major blow to user-generated reviews website Yelp, which competes with Google Places and Zagat. Google failed to acquire Yelp back in late 2009, with Yelp reportedly walking away from a $550 million deal. Google further distanced itself from Yelp when it removed Yelp’s reviews from Google Places in mid-2010.”
TNW: “I see this as a much more powerful play than just local offerings. This, combined with Google’s purchase of ITA and its hotel reviews puts the company firmly into the travel business, with more offerings than almost anyone else in the business.”
Lowe: “All of the restaurant reviews on Yelp could fill 16,894 Zagat guides, and only 26% of businesses reviewed on Yelp are restaurants. Congrats?“