Google Acquires Zagat

Google has purchased the prestigious restaurant ratings publisher, Zagat to boost its online maps and local business listings with trustworthy reviews and recommendations, which Web surfers increasingly seek and value.

“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,” wrote Marissa Mayer, Google’s vice president of local, maps and location services, in a blog post.

Google acquired Zagat, which was founded in 1979, because of its brand, reputation and quality of its surveys and reviews, which it publishes in print guides and online. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

Best known for its restaurant ratings, Zagat also surveys consumers about the quality of hotels, nightclubs and other leisure-themed businesses.

Transcenic Sues AOL, Google and Microsoft

It appears that Google and Microsoft are being taken to court for infringing on Transcenic’s patent whose technology allows users to navigate street-level views of cities.

Transcenic requested that a Delaware court for an injunction to inhibit Google, Mapquest and Microsoft from continuing to infringe on their patent and asked the court to award them monies for patent infrigment. Transcenic specifically stated in court documents that AOL’s Mapquest’s 360, Google’s Streetview, Google Earth and Microsoft’s Streetside copies its technology which covers systems for capturing and navigating within panoramic images.

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