Zagat: История рейтинговой системы ресторанов и отелей

Rating company

The Zagat Survey, commonly referred to as Zagat (stylized in all caps; /z//ə/'/ɡ//æ//t/, zəGAT') and established by Tim and Nina Zagat in 1979, is an organization which collects and correlates the ratings of restaurants by diners. For their first guide, covering New York City, the Zagats surveyed their friends. At its height around 2005, the Zagat Survey included 70 cities, with reviews based on the input of 250,000 individuals with the guides reporting on and rating restaurants, hotels, nightlife, shopping, zoos, museums, music, movies, theaters, golf courses, and airlines. The guides are sold in book form, and were formerly only available as a paid subscription on the Zagat website. As part of its more than $150 million acquisition by Google in September 2011, Zagats offering of reviews and ratings became a part of Google's Geo and Commerce group, eventually to be tightly integrated into Google's services. Google relaunched Zagat website on July 29, 2013, with an improved interface, but cut down the site from 30 cities to nine. They released a searchable database of reviews from the other 21 cities in the following days while they worked on expanding to include more cities in the new site. In December 2012, Google announced that it would lay off most former full time Zagat employees that were previously extended as contractors at the time of the acquisition, leading to prophetic business reports describing the future of Zagat book production as bleak, and subsequent business news reports recording the contraction of their print businesses. Regardless, Google's acquisition and integration of Zagat provided it with a strong brand in local restaurant recommendations and ample content for location based searches. On March 6, 2018, Google sold the company to restaurant discovery platform The Infatuation for an undisclosed amount.

The Zagat Survey was established by Tim and Nina Zagat in 1979 as a way to collect and correlate the ratings of restaurants by diners. Their first guide covered New York City dining, and was accomplished on the basis of a survey of their friends. By 2005, the Zagat Survey included 70 cities, with reviews based on the input of 250,000 individuals. The Guides, over the years, have reported on and rated restaurants, hotels, nightlife, shopping, zoos, music, movies, theaters, golf courses, and airlines. In addition to numeric scores, the survey also includes a short descriptive paragraph that incorporates selected quotations (typically a few words) from several reviewers' comments about each restaurant or service, as well as the pricing and rating information. In 1999, Tim and Nina Zagat's son, Ted Zagat, joined Zagat and served as president and COO until 2007. Zagat's distinctive thirty point rankings were replaced with a five point scale for products not at the Zagat website, following acquisition by Google in September 2011.

Private equity firm General Atlantic bought one third of parent company Zagat, LLC, for $31 million in February 2000 and installed non Zagat family member Amy B. McIntosh as CEO. In 2008, the company was on the block for $200 million. After there were no takers, the company announced in June that it was no longer for sale and that it would seek an organic growth strategy. On September 8, 2011, the company was acquired by Google for more than $150 million, the 10th largest acquisition by Google as of that date, at the championing of Marissa Mayer, its Vice President of Local, Maps, and Location Services. On March 6, 2018, Google sold the company to restaurant discovery platform The Infatuation for an undisclosed amount. On September 9, 2021, The Infatuation was acquired by JPMorgan Chase & Co.

Google is reported to have planned to use the Zagat acquisition to provide more content and reviews for its locally oriented services. On May 30, 2012, Zagat was officially integrated into Google's services, with its reviews now appearing on Google Maps and Google+ Local pages for relevant restaurants. Additionally, the Zagat online service became free to use, and once required a Google+ account to register though that is no longer the case. By July 2013, the Zagat online presence had (alongside its printed Guides, see below) narrowed from thirty cities, to nine – eight in the U. S., as well as London – though earlier content on other cities remains discoverable by outside search. appear, in concert, as evidence of changing plans of management for the original Zagat team. After the standard Google all hands meeting where the Frommer's acquisition was announced and discussed, contractors ceased to be invited to these Google meetings. In this period, Hernandez continued to lead the Zagat group, where it is reported that Google reorientation of Zagat from their original business model to "'Zagatize' the world [through] 100,000 ratings for small businesses" resulted in missed editorial production goals and Zagat contractor resentment toward the new Frommer's Googlers they perceived as having been given their positions. In commenting on the contraction in number of cities covered and in depth of print coverage, and on Google de emphasis of the distinctive, traditional 30 point rankings (replacing it with a 5 point scale for products not at the Zagat website), Jason Clampet at Skift writes, "Whether or not Zagat's brand voice will continue to rise to the top remains to be seen," and while "the Zagat brand may not seem as strong [post Google] [the] content's influence on diners and drinkers is arguably stronger than ever, thanks to its deep integration into the world's most popular mapping service." In November, 2019 the print version of the guide was relaunched after a three year hiatus.