Developers of location-based apps just got access to Google’s Zagat reviews

Google announced Friday that the Google Places data it makes available to app developers will now include Place Summaries, which are hand-curated reviews of the places and businesses listed on Google. This means high-quality information from Google such as Zagat reviews can be easily included in location-based apps.

As a Google Maps user, I’m excited about this. I really want Google to beef up its offerings for finding restaurants, stores, and other local places. The more rich place info it makes available to developers, the more useful Google Maps and Google Places will be for people in the Google ecosystem.