When I wrote my post of 7/16/06 for the Real Estate Blog Carnival I titled it the "Google-Zillow Model". I noted how Google delivers free search results and sells ads around the results. Zillow uses a similar model delivering free home data including street address, tax assessment, maps, value estimate (Zestimate) - (no reference yet in the Wikipedia) and sells ads around the data. Zillow had already made a deal with (#1) Google to use their best ad service. Zillow had already made a deal with (#3) MSN to provide the best aerial pictures from Pictometry. Yesterday, 7/18/06, Zillow made a deal with (#2) Yahoo to provide their searchers with quick access to home values. Yahoo! sites registered 5.6 billion search queries in the second quarter according to comScore Networks. Yahoo.com is the 2nd most visited Web site after MySpace.com of NewsCorp.
Last week Zillow added a home financing section with home loan quotes available from Lending Tree [of Barry Diller's InterActive Corp,IAC, home of Search Engine #5, Ask.com] and mortgage rates from Bankrate. My only question is, Where is the deal with Search Engine #4, AOL? Last week Ask.com. This week Yahoo.com. What's next? The Google-Zillow Model has become the Zillow-Google Model.
Dick Kaplan, CEO of Pictometry, after their deal with Microsoft was asked, Why didn't Microsoft buy Pictometry? Kaplan replied, "They offered, but they couldn't afford us." The same may soon be true for Zillow. The question may not be, Who will buy Zillow; but, Who will Zillow buy? With all their Zestimates, Zindexes and Zilloans; Zillow has taken over "All that is 'Z'", just like Google took over "All that is 'G'". Maybe the Realtors are justified in their paranoia. Zillow isn't just for cocktail parties anymore. Google may have beaten Zillow to verbdom (to Google something); but soon there will be a new search verb, to Zillow a home, meaning to look up the home's value on the Internet. How much is a Zillion dollars anyway?
Technorati Tags: AOL, Ask.com, Bankrate, Barry Diller, Blog Carnival, comScore Networks, Google, Dick Kaplan, IAC, InterActive Corp, Lending Tree, MSN, Microsoft, MySpace.com, NewsCorp, Pictometry, Real Estate Blog Carnival, Wikipedia, Yahoo!, Yahoo.com, Zestimate, ,Zillow, Zindex.
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