Last night as I prepared to power down the laptop and make my way to my bed, a ‘breaking news’ email came in from Inman. Zillow is now allowing consumers and Realtors to post their listings on their site. For free. And they’ve got a new wiki about real estate they are unveiling.
Now there once was a time when I swore I would never use the word z-i-l-l-o-w in a blog. I referred to it as ‘z’. Afterall, I didn’t want to do anything to help the enemy, like provide them with an incoming link from my highly ranked blog. (Note: the pagerank is coming, I’m waiting for the next Google update after moving off of Blogger to become the mistress of my own domain.)
Ironically enough, I had just sat through a one hour presentation from Realtor.com that morning. Our office is now enhancing all its listings there. Though I think this is a good thing, I do think Realtor.com is neither the prettiest site nor the most informative. You can’t beat their traffic numbers though. At least I think you can’t. I am sure Zillow will have something to say about that soon enough, if they don’t already.
Moments later (last night), an email came in from Drew Meyers, from Zillow to give me the news straight from the source.
Well, I decided I need to go to sleep anyway, in spite of this very timely blog fodder. So I woke up this morning to a plethora of commentary going on out there in the blogosphere. Some of my favorite thoughts on the topic so far, are from Kevin Boer at 3 Oceans (edit: woops, I linked to the wrong article the other day. This is corrected.) I see merit in Kevin’s 2.0 approach. Well presented, Kevin. Thanks for doing some of my thinking for me. Otherwise I might have been yelling “the sky is falling, the sky is falling” this morning. OK, not really, but…
Drew also is tracking the commentary on his blog. I’ll have to do some reading today. I have a feeling we will be talking about this for a while.
Oh yeah, Drew, are you hiring for anything besides programmers? And when are you dropping the beta?
[tags]zillow, realtor.com[/tags]
Written by Maureen Francis
SKBK Sotheby's International Realty, 248.430.4450
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Drew M from Zillow 12.07.06 at 12:58 pm
Maureen-
I’m glad you broke your Zillow silence! Regarding your two questions-
1) Yes, but mainly in the sales area (can take a look here http://zillow.hrmdirect.com/employment/index.php).
2) We are working on it. We’re still building the foundation of Zillow. Once that is complete and we’ve ironed out many of the bugs, we’ll yank the Beta sticker off the site.
Please do send me feedback on what you think of the new feature set – you know how to reach me. Good luck reading today
Maureen Francis 12.07.06 at 1:24 pm
Drew, Thanks for the answers. I was kind of joking about the job, but when Zillow takes over the world, I might be pounding on your door.
Maureen McCabe 12.07.06 at 1:40 pm
OK I was here this morning but did not leave a comment, I came via your AR blog.
You Michigan people were my first notice… Stefan on Active Rain first, then you? No, NY REALTOR® Joanne Brown on Active Rain was two… then your Active Rain Blog Mi Maureen!
… I shared an Alexa traffic graph I did over a month ago, Realtor.com vs. Zillow on your Active Rain Blog, MF. Good traffic…Wonder how the two site have compared the past month?
Off to read Kevin’s blog and decide whether to blog about Zillow on my other blog….
Sara 12.07.06 at 3:54 pm
Maureen,
If you go work at Zillow, can I have all your leads? I can only assue that you would be in some sort of executive position right??
JeffX 12.07.06 at 4:31 pm
Wow, nice digs Maureen!
Zillow isn’t done yet….they are becoming quite the data aggregator for real estate information…remains to be seen how they further leverage themselves…
Thx for the link!
Pat Kitano 12.07.06 at 8:12 pm
You’re no longer a Zirgin Maureen! I myself also avoid topics everyone is discussing because there is nothing to add… but the LeftCoasters got the jump… and I just add to add .02…
Maureen Francis 12.07.06 at 8:24 pm
Sara, you know I am not going anywhere, but if I do, the leads are yours.
Jeff, glad you like it. Please stop by again soon.
Pat, losing my zirginity was a big thing. Thanks for understanding.
John Lockwood 12.08.06 at 9:08 am
Yikes, don’t do it Maureen. Step back into the light.
I’m all for consumers having loads of real estate data, but my success as an agent rests on how successful I am in being the provider of that data.
Linking to me is totally the right thing to do. It provides you with more opportunities to move to California. It’s nice and warm here.
Lenn Harley 12.08.06 at 2:46 pm
Couldn’t care less. Can’t do anything about it anyway. I’ve seen them come and go for 11 years now.
teresa boardman 12.09.06 at 1:44 pm
i see you joined the dark side