Read original article on: The Verge
Continuing its grand plan of swallowing digital publishers and creating its own ecosystem, Facebook has started adding food critics’ reviews from to pages of restaurants. By partnering with publishers like Bon Appetit, Conde Nast Traveler, Eater, and New York Magazine, the social network is looking to leveraging its newfound access to editorial content into influencing the restaurant choices of its users.
With competition from Yelp and Google, Facebook’s local-search product has yet to gain much momentum. This new addition should give it a boost, while also becoming a testing ground for more Facebook-sanctioned editorial content to appear on other brand pages. While the sheen of critical validations could work wonders, brands also need to be aware of the risk as Facebook says that it will unselectively show all reviews provided by the publishers, negative ones included.