Yahoo taps Google Local’s leader Marissa Mayer for CEO after clandestine search

Source: Skift
Author: Dennis Schaal

As Yahoo’s new CEO, Marissa Mayer, moves to the head of the line on her first day on the new job today, Google loses one of the key players who orchestrated its acquisition of Zagat last year.

In fact, Mayer, hired by Yahoo as CEO in a move predicted by no one, is considered a product and user-experience guru, and wrote the Google blog post announcing the Zagat buy.

In the Sept. 8, 2011 post, Mayer telegraphed what Google eventually would do with Zagat, writing:

“… I’m incredibly excited to collaborate with Zagat to bring the power of Google search and Google Maps to their products and users, and to bring their innovation, trusted reputation and wealth of experience to our users.”

And, that’s what Google has been busy doing, as it integrated Zagat restaurant ratings and reviews into Google Local business listings, Google Maps, and Google Plus.

All of that came, of course, after TripAdvisor (hotel reviews) and Yelp (restaurant reviews) objected to the way that Google was using their content.

Despite’s Mayer’s transition to Yahoo, that Zagat integration into Google Local and Google Plus will accelerate and won’t skip a beat.

Zagat and Google are in the process of really expanding their hotel reviews and ratings, for instance, as Google expands their integration into search.

Mayer was very active in the development of Gmail and enhancing the user experience in search at Google.

Since Yahoo search is currently powered by Bing, you probably won’t see big changes on the search front at Yahoo in the short-term.

Mayer is just getting started at Yahoo and she’ll have a lot, well, to chew on.

Meanwhile, here’s a video of Mayer explaining why Google bought Zagat: