A waiter and patrons at Tony’s Restaurant, part of the Casablanca Hotel, July 19, 2013 in Times Square in New York. The Casablanca, is consistently in the top spot — gets between 100,000 and 180,000 views a month on TripAdvisor. “When you have that kind of viewership, you don’t need anything else to drive business […]
Credit: DON EMMERT
Google has acquired Appetas, a service that helps restaurants to build slick-looking websites that integrate with GrubHub, OpenTable, Foursquare and other services focused on the food industry.
In a blog post, Appetas said it would be shutting down its service to focus on “new endeavors” with Google. It will also be helping its customers to move their sites to alternative platforms. “We’ll be reaching out to each customer individually to ensure a smooth transition,” the company added.
As TechCrunch notes, the acquisition points to Google’s renewed interest in courting local businesses and tackling apps such as Yelp and Foursquare. I’ve argued that Google+ Local needs to be simplified before it can compete with either of these services – the same holds true for Zagat – and by bringing Appetas on board, Google will have a better chance of doing just that.
Featured image credit: DON EMMERT/AFP/Getty Images
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