Dishing Content on Multiple Platforms
Our business strategy has also been geared toward providing people with Zagat information everywhere they go at anytime. We want people to be able to download our reviews to their iPod or cell phone or PDA, and to be able to have it on your car’s navigation system. Pretty much every available platform.
What do you believe keeps the print version of each year’s Zagat Survey a desirable product when the online version of the guide is able to be updated on a daily basis?
Zagat: The guides are extremely handy and provide tangible properties that our other products don’t have. People love to write in the columns next to the restaurant to describe what they ate. Others put an asterisk and date next to the restaurants to keep a record of their dining experiences. It’s like a newspaper. People like to have paper in their hands. And who doesn’t love to get a Zagat guide for the holidays from their client or employer?
What area of your company is showing the greatest growth?
Zagat: It’s fairly even between our corporate sales and online areas.
How has the Web opened up the opportunities of having more contributors who can provide input for your surveys? How has this changed the survey results?
Zagat: It’s a time saver. People can respond to the survey at their convenience. And with the click of a button send us their responses. On our end, the calculating of the ratings is made much easier as well, being that [the data] has been collected digitally instead of on a faxed or mailed piece of paper. Just about everyone is online in some way or another today. Either at home, at school, at work, on the go (mobile phones, PDAs, laptops, etc.) and for those that don’t have a computer for themselves, access can be had in libraries. You have to go where the people are. And they, in turn, have responded.
