Google buys Zagat



I bought this laptop online in an e-commerce site, I have mobile broadband, I got all 48 tracks of the Well-Tempered Clavier off iTunes, all my recent book purchases from amazon. But I draw the line when it comes to food.

Here is when I go downstairs to get a motley cup of fresh nuts for my midday snack (you're not getting me to buy those pre-packaged trail mixes on supermarket shelves!). You might say I'm a nut aggregator.

And a Luddite when it comes to food.

What suddenly brought on this harangue was the news that Google, the giant aggregating machine, had acquired Zagat, a New-York based guide to local restaurants, with authentic original content from hundreds of thousands of local foodie reviewers in the US and 24 countries.

Google doesn't only want you to walk under its cloud, it wants to move into your neighbourhood. To do that, it is no longer content with linking you to content, it wants to go into the business of content. So it moved to buy Yelp last year for $500 million.

Yelp had said no, because it wasn't right. But Zagat, which I personally prefer to Yelp, said yes. And for way less money.

With its maps, hotel finder, and flight search, Google is with me in the car, in bed in some strange city, and in my head. Now it wants to be in my food.

I like what Yelp CEO Jeremy Stoppelman said about the need for 'preserving the ecosystem. And what journalism professor Jeff Jarvis said about 'channel conflict' and 'conflict of interest.' And what FairSearch.org said about 'unbiased search' and 'net neutrality.' And that OpenTable investors were 'queasy' about the deal. And that broad stuff asked, 'Who's eating whose lunch?'

Like I said, Yelp said no, because it wasn't right; but Zagat went to Google and asked, oh now, why not us instead?

And I don't understand it and still don't have words of my own to describe what I feel about it.

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