The Blog Carnival of Real Estate #19 was published today, 11/20/06. Zillow and the Zillow Blog sponsor the Blog Carnival. Like most other members of The New Real Estate or Real Estate 2.0, Zillow is into openness. They even allow themselves to be trashed on their own sponsored Blog Carnival by Zillonoids and other competition phobic Realtors:
Zillow is not worth discussing any more. I agree ... we know that Zillow and their brethren AVMs - Cyberhomes, Reply!, eppraisal - are insufficient property valuation vehicles... we don't need to see any more examples or demonstrations.
Welcome to the new sport of "Zillow-Baiting". But will trashing Zillow bring more traffic to your blog or to their site? Remember, Trashers, you and Real Estate 1.0 are about "Location, Location, Location". Zillow and Real Estate 2.0 are about, "Traffic, Traffic, Traffic".
Ever wonder why NAR didn't sponsor the Blog Carnival? Where was the NAR, Realtor.com and other purveyors of The Old Real Estate, Real Estate 1.0, when we could have used a blog carnival? Have you checked out the "blog" of our fearless leader, NAR President, Tom Stevens. Does his blog enable track backs, comments or emails? Guess.
Zillow, started in 02/06, and the Zillow Blog soon after, are open to suggestions and outside input. They even try to dialog and reason with the unreasonable. Zillow even gives their trashers an Internet forum.
In my first CRS course the instructor gave us the quote, "Great ideas are first violently opposed by simple minds." Zillow doesn't sell houses. Zillow sells ads. Zillow makes money the new fashioned way, Like Google. Get over it, Realtors. Go sell houses. Go fight the Banks, the DOJ, the FTC, the Discount Brokers, the IDX Websites and the Search Engines.
Realtors, Brokers and Agents, will someday be the biggest advertisers on Zillow; but most of us don't know that yet. Zillow and Google have to get the Local Search piece down,then Real Estate will be the entree into the even more profitable Local Search Ad Space.
Zillow had a blog before the NAR, Move.com, and Realtor.com. Zillow sponsored the Blog Carnival of Real Estate. Zillow did it for us and for free. When was the last time the NAR, Move Inc., or Realtor.com did anything for you for free?
The NAR, 1.2 million strong, hopes to stifle competition with the new Democrat Congress by permanently banning banks from Real Estate. Banks are in Life Insurance and Investments and I haven't heard of competition killing either of those industries.
Our organization can only use our buggy whips to beat off the Banks, the Department of Justice, the Federal Trade Commission, the Search Engines and Discount Brokers for so long. It's hard to hit your competition when you have your head stuck "where the sun don't shine".
Zillow is the Poster Child for Real Estate 2.0. Zillow will do more for Realtors in Real Estate 2.0 than the NAR, Move Inc., or Realtor.com will ever do for Realtors. Zillow listens. Ever try to contact the NAR? Did you vote for "our" new President?
Will the NAR lead us into Real Estate 2.0? Or will Zillow, Google or some other User-Friendly Search Engine lead us? Guess who's got my vote.
As a Realtor I say: "Zillow, I'm truly sorry."
Zillow, forgive us, for we know not what we do.
Happy Searching.
WebHomeUSAblog; The Blog of Real Estate Search Marketing
You've taken the excerpt from my article out of context... what I'm saying is we've seen too many examples of why Zillow and their AVM brethren are faulty and it's not worth discussing any more. That's all, it's not a bash... it's an obvious statement.
Yes, my article has a fundamental flaw I admit to...
Read all the comments in my article http://tinyurl.com/ufyek ... I'm on record admitting I overlooked Zillow's first mover advantage in terms of the publicity they've generated from the originality of their AVM. I'm an admirer of Zillow - I'm pleased they made the AdAge Marketing 50 and I admired their heat map analyses.
I'm not a detractor/basher of Zillow at all... the article may have come across that way because I see how easily it is for the competition to play catch up with the new Web 2.0 apps. In aggregate, the pioneers plus their followers are now leading Web 2.0.
Related articles:
http://tinyurl.com/ya7hkh
http://tinyurl.com/y3p5zk
Posted by: Pat Kitano | November 20, 2006 at 01:57 PM
What's a zillow? I'm a Property Shark fan.
Posted by: jf.sellsius | November 20, 2006 at 07:48 PM