A better read is this take on the purchase:
http://econsultancy.com/us/blog/798...lematic-ever?utm_medium=feeds&utm_source=blog
Essentially, google is doing one or two things - either getting into publishing (the actual publishing of books, guides, etc) or is stripping the company of it's information. If it is stripping the company of its information, then it has to somehow position itself in front of several of Zagat's competitors. That could mean another algorithm change to rank google properties higher than non-google.
That is also why I think +1 is a big deal with google (and SHOULD BE with web owners). Google, it seems, wants to go head-to-head with Facebook. +1 sites I am sure will ultimately score better than a
facebook like or
follow.
What google has to be careful of is this...it makes its money off of ads. And if it's customers are getting knocked down in the rankings because of google owned entities, that could backfire on Google. Zagat ranks restaurants, hotels, and other hot spots. For that reason alone, google runs the risk of alienating its own clients and paying customers. In the Adwords scheme of things, no one is going to want to compete being number one paying $25.00 per keyword when it will be impossible to ever achieve that number one spot due to Google's own holdings.