Google sells Frommer’s brand after only eight months – to Arthur Frommer

By Trevor Mogg Published April 4, 2013

Well, that didn’t last long, did it. Less than a year after Google acquired travel book publisher Frommer’s from John Wiley & Sons for $22 million, it’s decided to sell it – to founder Arthur Frommer.

The Web giant bought the popular brand in August last year with the intention of using data from the travel guides to improve its own local listings and reviews used by a number of its Web services. It’s not known how much Arthur Frommer paid to buy back the rights to the brand he created way back in 1957.

Recommended Videos

Travel news website Skift reported last month that Google had decided to stop printing the paper-based version of the famous range of guidebooks, but Frommer told the Associated Press this week that he intends to get the printing presses rolling again.

“It’s a very happy time for me,” the 83-year-old travel guru told AP. “We will be publishing the Frommer travel guides in ebook and print formats and will also be operating the travel site Frommers.com.”

With sales of printed guidebooks suffering in the face of competition from the Web, Frommer is a brave man to push on with such editions, but he evidently feels there are still plenty of travelers out there willing to lug around a heavy book rather than pull up local information on a smartphone.

Frommer, who sold the brand to Simon & Schuster in 1977, launched the business in the 1950s with a book he wrote himself called Europe on 5 Dollars a Day. It soon became a bestseller and served as the launchpad for a brand familiar with anyone who’s spent more than a couple of minutes in the travel section of a bookshop or searching online for information on world locations.

AP said it received confirmation from Google on Wednesday that it had sold the brand, with the Mountain View company explaining that “the travel content it had acquired from Frommer’s and Wiley had been integrated into various Google services such as Google+.”

So it seems both parties are happy with the deal – Google has pulled from the books all the information it wanted for its own services, and Arthur Frommer reunites with the brand he created and built over many years of his life.

Contributing Editor

Not so many moons ago, Trevor moved from one tea-loving island nation that drives on the left (Britain) to another (Japan)…

Topics

Google

Computing

How to change margins in Google Docs

Laptop Working from Home

When you create a document in Google Docs, you may need to adjust the space between the edge of the page and the content -- the margins. For instance, many professors have requirements for the margin sizes you must use for college papers.

You can easily change the left, right, top, and bottom margins in Google Docs and have a few different ways to do it.

Computing

What is Microsoft Teams? How to use the collaboration app

A close-up of someone using Microsoft Teams on a laptop for a videoconference.

Online team collaboration is the new norm as companies spread their workforce across the globe. Gone are the days of primarily relying on group emails, as teams can now work together in real time using an instant chat-style interface, no matter where they are.

Using Microsoft Teams affords video conferencing, real-time discussions, document sharing and editing, and more for companies and corporations. It's one of many collaboration tools designed to bring company workers together in an online space. It’s not designed for communicating with family and friends, but for colleagues and clients.

Computing

Microsoft Word vs. Google Docs

A person using a laptop that displays various Microsoft Office apps.

For the last few decades, Microsoft Word has been the de facto standard for word processors across the working world. That's finally starting to shift, and it looks like one of Google's productivity apps is the heir apparent. The company's Google Docs solution (or to be specific, the integrated word processor) is cross-platform and interoperable, automatically syncs, is easily shareable, and perhaps best of all, is free.

However, using Google Docs proves it still has a long way to go before it can match all of Word's features -- Microsoft has been developing its word processor for over 30 years, after all, and millions still use Microsoft Word. Will Google Docs' low barrier to entry and cross-platform functionality win out? Let's break down each word processor in terms of features and capabilities to help you determine which is best for your needs.
How does each word processing program compare?
To put it lightly, Microsoft Word has an incredible advantage over Google Docs in terms of raw technical capability. From relatively humble beginnings in the 1980s, Microsoft has added new tools and options in each successive version. Most of the essential editing tools are available in Google Docs, but users who are used to Word will find it limited.