Local—now with a dash of Zagat and a sprinkle of Google+ | Hacker News Reader

Local—now with a dash of Zagat and a sprinkle of Google+

googleblog.blogspot.com

54 pointsavsaro27 comments

Whoah, “Any future ratings, reviews, or photos will be visible on the web under the name <my name>”. “Your reviews and associated photos are displayed to [...] anyone who views places you've reviewed.”

No way to “share with precisely the right folks”? Talk about awkward online sharing. Ugh.

I wrote 198 reviews in the past but I don't feel comfortable making them public. I'd be fine with extended circles or some such. If I try to edit them, I get forced to make them public. I'm a bit disappointed.

This just looks awful.... Looking for restaurants in my city I get a list, of which I can display a whole two (!!!) on my screen at once, next to a tiny sliver of a map, because google wants to provide me a link to every service they have ever invented on the side of the screen (seriously, this is barely an exaggeration).... And within this list I get a host of useless information such as "at a glance: flavour, dining experience", "Score: overall: 15" (15 out of what?!!!), and a half of one persons text review (what good is half of one review for anyone?). Awful design. Just afwul.

And this is aside from the fact that the big 'restructure' and integration with G+ to succeed really needs me to have all of my friends using the same service, reviewing restaurants under their real names (v. unlikely).

Why don't google just focus on providing some clean and simple frontends to all that data they have. I'd love a better service to look up a decent restaurant to go to. This is very definitely not it...

This sounds like a "30 seconds of usage just to find reasons to bash another G+ product" type of review. The Zagat rating system is pretty clearly described when you choose a category, and it's also shown if you hover the score. Also, are you saying there's too much or too little text? First you're complaining that you can't see enough, then you're saying there's not enough information. There's a contradiction here.

I honestly think it looks fine, and seeing 3 restaurants per category to choose a category seems fine to me. I think there's all the info I need at each step of drilling down as well. Looks great to me.

> Also, are you saying there's too much or too little text?

Its both. There is loads too much stuff on the screen (that I'm not interested in in the slightest), and at the same time it is very difficult for me to try to make a comparison of multiple restaurants. Whether I want to do this by average review, price, location, by looking at individual reviews, etc. it all involves a huge amount of scrolling and clicking and remembering where to scroll to on the previous page etc. (much more than necessary). At least for the way I want to look for restaurants.

Actually the Zagat rating system is pretty straightforward, but I don't seem to get it in my city (outside the USA), just an 'overall score'.

Also - Apologies if I was a little on the condescending side - its genuinely because I want google to produce a good product that I can use, but for me I can never see myself finding this useful.

I like Google and G+, but I think the appropriate place for these updates is in Google Maps. I don't know when I'll be searching for food in G+. Probably not soon.

IMO, what really needs to be updated are the Maps pages that look like this: http://goo.gl/RwKqM. Every time I land on one I just end up manually typing the restaurant's name into Yelp instead. That's extra work, but I do it. Then I'm in Yelp and I just browse around in there instead of Google Maps, so those pages pretty much actively push me to use another service.

Generally I go to yelp because clicking the restaurant's picture doesn't eject me into a random site that the picture was scraped from, the reviews seem to be more helpful, and the users all have pictures. All the blank user silhouettes on the maps pages make it feel cheap. A lot of other things could be improved too but I can't think of what specifically atm.

It is integrated with Google Maps. My android Maps app just updated with this new local integration. The interface in the app looks much better than before. It has a new recommendation thing that will recommend you restaurants based on your own reviews (and differently from usual recommendation websites, this one is actually not terrible). And it points you to places your friends reviewed on the top of the search as well.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=...

The Google+ Local landing pages are the replacement for those Maps pages. It may take time for this to roll out but it's what I see when I click "more info" or the restaurant name from a search in Maps. It's a huge improvement.

I agree! I wasn't seeing this earlier but now I am. Pretty cool.

This interface is way too cluttered. They're showing a half-dozen arbitrary numbers per restaurant and that means absolutely nothing to me. The UX needs a lot of work and needs to get beyond this silly made-for-computers rating system.

Do they really expect me to calculate the average "cost per person" too? I know it says optional but that's absurd.

"Made for computers rating system"? The thirty-point scale is exactly what Zagat has done for years.

Do they really expect me to calculate the average "cost per person" too? I know it says optional but that's absurd.

Total bill divided by number of people. It's optional, but ultimately a very helpful field for those who are reading your review. Most people want to go to a good restaurant, but not if it costs $300 per person. Being able to filter those out without manually reading each review is helpful to them, and theoretically you are writing a review to help other people :)

Google keeps changing the names of things that they've previously launched. Google Docs becomes Google Drive. Google Places becomes Google Plus Local (aside-- why isn't Local tied into search instead of Google+?!).

I think name changes like this are incredibly resource-consuming and confusing for users. It's interesting to note that Apple has never changed iTunes' name, even though it's way broader than "tunes" at this point.

Google Docs is still around. Google Drive is just an addon to that which provides storage for more than just documents. Previously this was integrated into Google Docs, which made no sense.

In the black bar at the top of gmail, there used to be a link called "Docs". Now it says "drive". It's been pretty well fully rebranded to "Drive". In fact, docs.google.com redirects to drive.google.com.

Hmm, apparently I haven't been upgraded to Google Drive. All my links still say Docs, as well as the URL. Although I do now see this message:

"Google Docs will soon be upgraded to Google Drive"

Google Drive seems to be more than just an addon now. I just opted in to Google Drive, and now when I type in docs.google.com I am redirected to drive.google.com. Everything in Docs looks Drive branded now.

I think Google Places was also called Google Hot Pot at some point. Then, for a while, Google Hot Pot was just a different interface for viewing your reviews.

Edit: It appears that they've dropped Hot Pot entirely. google.com/hotpot redirects to maps.google.com

I was wondering when Google would tie in their purchase of Zagat.

Now, if only they would save the Zagat brand by restructuring its criteria. When I saw a Zagat sticker on the outside of a KFC I almost threw up. They need to remove themselves from the fast food space entirely: http://www.zagat.com/fastfood

Your Zagat rated pretentiousness is delicious.

Why shouldn't fast food be rated?

Because there is no differentiating factor between a 5-star steakhouse and a fast food joint. They need different logos/stickers to display on the outside window IMO.

I'm pretty sure the Wendy's near me that has a few Zagat sticks on it has text that clearly states what category (Fast Food) it was highly rated in. Besides, going into Wendy's I know they are rated differently than a sit down restuarant.

Zagat already rates everything from the corner burger joint to a steakhouse. Having the Zagat sticker in the window doesn't mean anything, it's about the rating.

I've always found the Zagat "30 point" scale to be confusing

I'm surprised to see that it made the cut into Goog's interface for general consumption:

I've always thought that the Metacritic / RottenTomatoes / etc scoring system was more intuitive where they show an aggregate professional review score side-by-side with user reviews:

eg http://www.metacritic.com/movie/men-in-black-iii

Not to mention the Zagat ratings are often wildly inaccurate. For example, in my city, they gave the "best French restaurant" title to an overpriced chain, not to the actualy French restaurant, run by a French chef, that has a 3 month long waiting list. Having been to both, and to France, the two don't compare, and yet Zagat doesn't even mention the good place.

Not to mention your very valid point on their "30 point" system which just plain doesn't make sense. A metacritic type thing would in fact be WAY better. Also they should add Michelin stars, because those I've at least found to be reliable.

Zagat ratings are often used by travelers, casual diners, etc. If they included a restaurant with a 3 month waiting list they'd be setting up a lot of their readers for disappointment.

If they included a restaurant with a 3 month waiting list they'd be setting up a lot of their readers for disappointment.

Unless they're planning in advance. I'd be kinda pissed if I arrived in a city and learned there was a kick-ass French restaurant but was not warned to book in advance when that was a real possibility and I could have done so.

I think you want Michelin, not Zagat. I don't know much about restaurants, but it seems that Michelin sends anonymous professional reviewers to restaurants, while Zagat aggregates and edits reviews from "normal people". The result is that Zagat will emphasize convenience and down-to-earth-ness (for lack of a better word), while Michelin will concentrate on the novelty of the food.

Ultimately, the point of reviews is to avoid bad restaurants, not to find the best restaurant.

This might be better if G+ had any frickin' idea where I am. None of the places listed are local.

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