Here's a curious new business deal: Google has just purchased Zagat, the well-known restaurant guide company. They'll be integrating Zagat's reviews in search results and Google Maps.

The purchase makes a certain amount of sense. Zagat's reviews are short and sweet, and are accompanied by a Google-friendly 30-point scale on the food, ambiance and service. Google loves numbers!

Of course, Zagat's influence has also gone down quite a bit since food blogs and sites like Yelp arrived. Its reviews fall in a strange grey area between questionably sourced, short reviews from Yelp and legit, full-length reviews from professional food critics. But maybe Google can move it back towards being the standard place people look for restaurant info. Although to be honest, I kind of doubt it. We'll see!

Via Google Blog