More competition from big G

[south]

More direct competition.

http://www.pcworld.com/article/23982...zagat_buy.html

[RBohm]

I think Google is becoming a monster. There isn't much they aren't dipping their hands into now.

[Gerry]

A better read is this take on the purchase:

http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/7986...tm_source=blog

Essentially, google is doing one or two things - either getting into publishing (the actual publishing of books, guides, etc) or is stripping the company of it's information. If it is stripping the company of its information, then it has to somehow position itself in front of several of Zagat's competitors. That could mean another algorithm change to rank google properties higher than non-google.

That is also why I think +1 is a big deal with google (and SHOULD BE with web owners). Google, it seems, wants to go head-to-head with Facebook. +1 sites I am sure will ultimately score better than a facebook like or follow.

What google has to be careful of is this...it makes its money off of ads. And if it's customers are getting knocked down in the rankings because of google owned entities, that could backfire on Google. Zagat ranks restaurants, hotels, and other hot spots. For that reason alone, google runs the risk of alienating its own clients and paying customers. In the Adwords scheme of things, no one is going to want to compete being number one paying $25.00 per keyword when it will be impossible to ever achieve that number one spot due to Google's own holdings.

[GeoOwners]

A better read is this take on the purchase:

http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/7986...tm_source=blog

Essentially, google is doing one or two things - either getting into publishing (the actual publishing of books, guides, etc) or is stripping the company of it's information. If it is stripping the company of its information, then it has to somehow position itself in front of several of Zagat's competitors. That could mean another algorithm change to rank google properties higher than non-google.

That is also why I think +1 is a big deal with google (and SHOULD BE with web owners). Google, it seems, wants to go head-to-head with Facebook. +1 sites I am sure will ultimately score better than a facebook like or follow.

What google has to be careful of is this...it makes its money off of ads. And if it's customers are getting knocked down in the rankings because of google owned entities, that could backfire on Google. Zagat ranks restaurants, hotels, and other hot spots. For that reason alone, google runs the risk of alienating its own clients and paying customers. In the Adwords scheme of things, no one is going to want to compete being number one paying $25.00 per keyword when it will be impossible to ever achieve that number one spot due to Google's own holdings.

Spot on. At some point the surfers will get sick of google properties always being first too. They want to go to Zagat not goog. imo

[south]

This is bigger in my opinion.

http://www.dailyfinance.com/2011/09/...arch-and-save/

[Gerry]

This is bigger in my opinion.

Seeing this on CNN right now.

Makes sense as they are going head on with Bing. But Kayak, Orbitz, and all the others may suffer heavily.

[south]

This is a huge alienation of a large group of advertisers. Travel is a top industry in the U.S economy, and one of the more lucrative online businesses.

I see this as similar to Microsoft has done repeatedly in killing off other businesses, ala netscape, wordperfect, etc. It's all about eps and growth. Gotta keep the stock price going up up up...

Also, and more relevant to this board; how will this affect the value (or usefulness) of a nice *flights.com name, developed or not? Not to the upside..

[Gerry]

Also, and more relevant to this board; how will this affect the value (or usefulness) of a nice *flights.com name, developed or not? Not to the upside..

We all know google can do what ever it wants to do and can afford it. However, not everything google does is successful. Several of their offerings are now dead (I think WAVE is one of them).

In this arena, travel, I would have to say that google may be at a disadvantage simply because they came late to the party. Orbitz, Travelocity, Priceline, and others are well positioned and recognized brands in their own rights. I would imagine their success is in their marketing of their brands and will continue to do just fine. I have to believe that an overwhelming majority of their traffic and sales are direct traffic and type-ins I honestly can not recall the last time I googled any thing in relation to travel, tickets, air fares, etc.

On the other hand, naturally...google can dominate the searches on google for these exact same products - just like it does with Google maps. Google will make it very difficult for any new start ups in the travel (flights sector) to get off the ground, no pun intended. Google seems intent on becoming the Wal-Mart of the internet...carry everything, sell everything, be the de facto store to everyone.