Google Extends Rich Cards to Include Local Restaurants and Online Courses

[engine]

Google launched Rich Cards [webmasterworld.com] earlier this year for Movies and Recipes to enable a new way of presenting site content. It's now adding two new verticals to the Rich Cards, with the addition of Local Restaurants and Online Courses for U.S. businesses.

This is a way to get more information into the SERPs, so although some may have been sceptical in the past, it's worth evaluating, imho.
Google Extends Rich Cards to Include Local Restaurants and Online Courses [webmasters.googleblog.com]

[Hobbs]

That's Google slowly turning into a Yahoo
Adopting ways of the dodo

[engine]

The idea behind this is that the information becomes available in a standard format: That makes sense to me.

[yawermalik]

Its very helpful to improve more data on serp, but it will affect on serp page, because site would be expanded more.. as Google trying to more focus on Adwords..

[graeme_p]

It makes sense. The downside for some webmasters is that more and better information in the SERPS means less reason to visit the page. On the other hand, for others, it may not matter (if someone comes to your restaurant, who cares whether they found it straight from the SERPS or came to the site) and for others it may mean a smaller number of visitors who are more likely to convert.

Not good if your site makes money from ads though.