Google made an announcement that it has plans to buy Frommer's travel guides from publisher, John Wiley & Sons.
According to the New York Times Google will pay approximately $23 million for Frommers though the companies have both declined to comment on the price of the purchase.
Frommer's started in 1957 with Arthur Frommer's "Europe on $5 a Day," and has grown to more than 300 guidebooks as well as the Frommers.com website. The deal shows that Google is trying to make itself a media company that produces information and not just be a search engine for relevant links.
Greg Sterling, founder of Sterling Market Intelligence said to The New York Times, "In certain key areas now, they've seen the value of having content and how important it is to consumers. Frommer's is even more content-rich."
Though Google in the past has said that they would not cross into content production rather just be a provider for it. In 2010 the company's chief executive at the time, Eric. E Schmidt said that Google was careful to define a line in which they would not cross into content creation and wanted to remain a neutral platform. However recently, the company has started to cross over into content production with Google's YouTube division and their acquisition of Zagat, which has restaurant reviews.
Some people are nervous however, that if Google starts to really produce content the links that they provide, would be biased, placing their companies such as Zagat or Frommers above other links.
"Our goal with local search is to help people find the local information they need - as quickly and easily as possible. At times, we think the best result is to direct a user to some other site or product, and each day we send millions of customer referrals through our search products," said Google to The New York Times.
This article is copyrighted by Travelers Today, the travel news leader
