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" The reports this week of Google buying Zagat have put the sale figure at anywhere between $66 million and $200 million, with some questioning what the current value of the guides might be in an age of online food bloggers and so much information being given away free. Tim and Nina Zagat contend that the book versions of their guides are &amp;quot;very profitable,&amp;quot; though an offer to sell the company in 2008 for $200 million went nowhere. The real question is: What is Google getting for its money? (They tried and failed to buy Yelp two years ago.) Google&amp;#039;s VP of Location and Local Services (actually a job title), Marissa Mayer, told the Times they planned to &amp;quot;expand Zagat&amp;#039;s team, which now includes sales staff, fact-checkers, hundreds of contractors who conduct the surveys, and, most important, the hundreds of thousands of reviewers in more than 100 cities.&amp;quot; But those &amp;quot;reviewers,&amp;quot; on whom Zagat built its early vox populi model, are simply people like today&amp;#039;s bloggers who send in their ratings numbers and quips about restaurants that they a) may or may not have ever visited, b) might be judging on a single brunch visit five years ago when Uncle Harry got food poisoning from the shrimp cocktail, or c) might actually work for. Media reports of people stacking up the stars for travel sites are legion, with the four- and five-star ratings always at the top. I&amp;#039;ve met several people who describe themselves as &amp;quot;Zagat reviewers&amp;quot; and tell the restaurateurs they are reviewing their establishments, which is a complete falsehood Zagat would never sanction. An amazing number of terrified restaurateurs have reported to me that they are often being threatened with bad reviews by bloggers. So wherein lies the value of the Zagat guides to the consumer, relative to the blogosphere they are now entering? Zagat&amp;#039;s contention, as posted in its books, is that they are &amp;quot;based on public opinion surveys of regular restaurant goers like you. The ratings reflect the average scores given by the survey participants who voted on each establishment. The text is based on quotes from, or paraphrasing of, the surveyors&amp;#039; comments.&amp;quot; And therein lies the rub: What is the value of a guide in which the overwhelming majority of restaurants get a rating of 19 to 30 points (&amp;quot;very good&amp;quot; to &amp;quot;perfection&amp;quot;)? Turn to any page of any of the guides \u2014 I have the 2011 New York City edition in my hands \u2014 and try to find restaurants that rate below 19 points. Here I go at random: Page 44: seven restaurants, two with 19 points, one with 21, three with 23, one with 24. Page 117: two at 20, one at 21, three at 24. Page 227: one at 20, one at 23, three at 24, and one at 27. And so on for every one of the book&amp;#039;s 276 pages. In fact, you have to read through three pages and fifteen restaurants before even hitting an 18 rating (&amp;quot;very good&amp;quot;), and the first 16 rating (&amp;quot;good&amp;quot;) doesn&amp;#039;t appear until page 34! Di Fara Pizza and Peter Luger Steak House get the same 27 points (&amp;quot;extraordinary&amp;quot;), as does Bouley, Marea, Babbo, and Momofuku Ko. Patty &amp;amp;amp; Bun, which has since closed, gets the same rating, 20, as Les Halles. Then there are those quotes, which can be two or three words from various respondents cobbled together into less than a sentence. On The Redhead (22 points): &amp;quot;&amp;#039;Never judge a book bit its cover&amp;#039; advise admirers of this East Village &amp;#039;charmer&amp;#039; in &amp;#039;dive bar&amp;#039; clothing, which dishes up &amp;#039;insanely tasty&amp;#039; New American vittles with a Southern slant.&amp;quot; I have no reason to question Zagat&amp;#039;s modus operandi \u2014 it is what it is \u2014 or any notion that it manipulates ratings, though the editors get to choose the overwhelmingly positive quotes. What I question is the real worth of ratings that are, across the board, page after page, so unbelievably high. For while it may be argued that the greatest pizzeria in Brooklyn deserves high praise, is it really in a league with great Italian restaurants like Babbo or Marea? Can Peter Luger, which does serve an extraordinary porterhouse but little else worth raving about, sit comfortably in the company of Bouley, Gotham Bar &amp;amp;amp; Grill, and Masa? The Zagat ratings clearly reflect little more than fan-club enthusiasms, rather than considered judgments of a kind that a professional critic exacts upon a restaurant. One might question why the Times&amp;#039; Sam Sifton gushes over the now-defunct M. Wells, but he never gave it four stars. (The restaurant was too new to garner sufficient ratings when the 2011 Zagat guide came out last fall.) What exactly would be the value of a guide to rock-and-roll music if almost every band got a very good to perfect rating? Or a guide to the best baseball teams of all time that included minor leaguers, whose fans call the first baseman &amp;quot;awesome&amp;quot; and the relief pitcher &amp;quot;insanely talented&amp;quot;? The vox populi is a wonderful First Amendment concept, but when something like 40 percent of Americans don&amp;#039;t believe in evolution, you gotta wonder if the voice of the people can be a little screwy. PLUS: More John Mariani on Esquire&amp;#039;s Eat Like a Man Blog and John Mariani&amp;#039;s Official Site "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.esquire.com/food-drink/restaurants/a10879/zagat-google-value-6404795/>