This is me last month, at the time of the Zillow.com’s most-recent software release:
In the world of Trulia.com — and other listings.bots focused on evanescent listings — users come and go. On the idealized Planet Zillow, users come and stay.
Home buying is at most an 18-month effort undertaken every seven to ten years, on average. Home ownership is continuous. Zillow attracts a lot of sellers, and it seems certain that it hopes to attract a countervailing cadre of buyers. But what Zillow is really doing, I think, is aiming at the 100 million-plus Americans who own their own homes. Some may come every day — to see new listings, to see new home photos, to ask or answer questions. Some may come only once in a while, when they have a particular need.
But its databases are permanent and accretive, constantly improving. I think Zillow’s goal is not to compete with Trulia or Google Base for home shoppers in the short run. I think its goal is to suck every bit of oxygen out of the residential real estate space as a vertical market. I’m not implying malice. But where others see this opportunity or that opportunity, I think Zillow.com sees the information marketplace for homeowners as a single unified whole, and I think the company’s goal is to dominate the whole thing in its entirety.
Today’s changes have the potential to make Trulia.com a stickier experience. But will it retain end-users after their homes have closed?
Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing
Franz @ Blue Collar Agents says:
I’m not convinced this will be the ultimate metric of success. Think of Google and Yahoo during their earlier growth years – Yahoo tried to become a sticky portal (i.e. Zillow), Google focused on creating the best search (i.e. Trulia), whether or not it kept people on their own site.
May 13, 2007 — 8:42 am
Franz @ Blue Collar Agents says:
To clarify, my point was that Google experienced much stronger growth “despite” their narrow focus.
May 13, 2007 — 8:43 am
Cape Cod Vacation Homes says:
They have cool useful products for a reason though….the cool tools bring the traffic and then their marketing team converts it.
May 30, 2008 — 11:14 am
Sue says:
I will tell you this, I cannot get my listings off Zillow even after they have expired and sold. I’ve seen other realtors making the same comment. Its very frustrating because homeowners don’t want their home advertised for sale when its not.
June 9, 2008 — 7:40 pm
Greg Swann says:
When a listing sells, you have to change the status to sold. If you don’t remember to do this, Zillow should be reminding you by email.
June 9, 2008 — 8:01 pm
Sue says:
I know and I LOVE changing it to “sold” ;)but the option just wasn’t thre. I think there may have been some sort of glitch. I’ve seen others commenting with the same problem. Hopefully its fixed. I haven’t had a minute to check….which is a good thing!
June 9, 2008 — 8:25 pm
David says:
http://www.propertyqube.com – A more sticky experience, and a search engine that beats Trulia… Name a city and we have more listings, in a friendlier less crowded display. Heck, throw in Brazlian listings, Australian, maybe London? Of Berlin?
And that’s just our search which we use as a teaser, we are truly passionate about our social network features…
June 19, 2008 — 1:50 pm
Hunter Jackson says:
and wow, how much has changed with the big bots since this time!
June 24, 2008 — 11:45 am
Steve Owings says:
The yahoo and google example was great. Despite google’s narrow focus they have taken over and look to be far too dominating for anyone else to put up a fight against them.
July 18, 2008 — 7:45 am
Sue says:
Yes, that is a great example with google and yahoo supporting the more narrow focus. I agree Steve, Google is so dominating and seemingly advanced in other ways from what I read and see that it doesn’t seem possible for anyone to catch up. I believe they are also getting more sophisticated in how they will rank.
July 21, 2008 — 7:59 pm
Natasha Bassova says:
I think both Trulia and Zillow are great websites for additional exposure of our listings and for buyers and sellers to search for property or check out prices. I know younger buyers use these web sites all the time. They both need some improvements to provide better service to the customers.
July 25, 2008 — 10:02 pm
Jensen says:
Trulia is great for more exposure thats for sure. I have never used Zillow so can not comment on that.
August 15, 2008 — 12:14 pm