Rather than wait any longer or try to softly merge the platforms, Zomato has decided to quickly pull the plug on Urbanspoon to mark the completion of its purchase.
After discussing the shift on its blog, the brand released the following image on social media to mark the transition.
https://twitter.com/Zomato/status/605296814296862720
Users heading to Urbanspoon today will be automatically redirected to Zomato, where the stable of content has been migrated.
Certain core features are missing, most notably Urbanspoon's "like/don't like" style reviews. These have been replaced with Zomato's 5-point review system, which offers a touch more color than an up/down vote. For the purposes of the transition, the percentages of likes vs dislikes was used as a baseline for the comparative point rating on Zomato.
Zomato has also migrated Spoonbacks, a blogger favorite, by offering the ability to become a blogger on Zomato to post content and reviews.
Other integration changes include the transfer of Urbanspoon Wishlists and Favorites to Bookmarks on Zomato as well as a separate leaderboard for users and bloggers to showcase the most prolific reviewers.
As with any such significant changes, reaction to the change was mixed. Some really enjoyed the transition ad while others lamenting the loss of the Urbanspoon brand — including this user who felt that Urbanspoon was a stronger name than Zomato:
https://twitter.com/amvandenhurk/status/605339351699058689
Zomato purchased Urbanspoon earlier this year for around $60 million and then moved swiftly to raise another round of capital to purchase Maple POS.
The strategy is to tackle worldwide expansion into food discovery while setting the stage to become an end-to-end solution for restaurants as far as technology, marketing and guest engagement management.