Say goodbye to the 30-point rating scale
It's the end of an era: Longstanding dining guide producer Zagat has nixed its traditional 30-point rating scale for restaurants, reports the Wall Street Journal. Now, it'll score restaurants from one to five stars a la Yelp or TripAdvisor.
The new ratings rolled out Tuesday along with a redesigned logo and a new mobile app. All the existing 30-point scale ratings have been converted to star ratings — and while the move may seem like a dramatic simplification, in practice it doesn't seem to be that big of a change: Restaurants are still scored separately for food, decor, and service, and the use of decimals means the ratings are still quite specific. (For example, NYC's Le Bernardin, previously rated 29 for food, 28 for decor, and 29 for service, now has 4.9, 4.8, and 4.9 stars respectively.)
Founded in New York in 1979, Zagat was purchased by Google in 2011, and the company has been grooming it as a Yelp competitor ever since. There's certainly no love lost between the two companies: Yelp has accused Google of stealing its content and unfairly manipulating its results to ensure Zagat and other Google-owned content comes out ahead in searches.
• Zagat Overhauls Restaurant Review Ratings [WSJ]
• All Food Media Coverage [E]
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