In business they say if you have 2 of the 3 of "Faster, Better, Cheaper" you have a much greater chance of success. Google has been wildly successful in the General Search Space because it is Faster, Cheaper and Better.
On Thursday, 12/7/06, Zillow sent a shot across the bows of the NAR, Move Inc and Realtor.com. Zillow entered into the realm of the National MLS, allowing Real Estate Agents and home owners to upload their listing data to Zillow.com and open up their listing data to the www, the World Wide Web.
"Location, Location, Location" just became "Traffic, Traffic, Traffic". Real Estate 1.0 just took a giant step into Real Estate 2.0. Internet Real Estate just became the Zillow Infonet. The Open Internet Genie is out of the NAR bottle. My money is on that Genie never getting corked again.
It will be interesting how the NAR, Move Inc and Realtor.com plays Zillow's FREE services. Is there any way NAR can defend its Realtors not using free advertising on one of the top Real Estate Websites in all the known world? Last month Zillow had 3.2 million home buyer and seller visits. Just wait until Zillow starts to advertise.
Even if you didn't think the Real Estate World changed in 2/06 with the introduction of Zillow, it would be hard to doubt the change now; with Zillow's new services, user tools and clean and elegant interface.
Zillow was Faster and Cheaper, but suffered from not being Better. Now Zillow is better. Zillow will now have 1 platform, the Uni-Platform, where all Real Estate info can be loaded. Zillow could clean up the data and sell it back to the Move Inc, Realtor.com and the MLSs.
Zillow will have all the homes for sale, not just listed properties. Zillow may well become the Walmart of Real Estate as well as the Google of Real Estate.
What are the NAR and Realtor.com to do? They can continue to hide our listing data on the Invisible Web in Realtor.com. They can hope Zillow, like Google, will go away. They can hope the DOJ and the FTC will go after Zillow. The NAR can give state's evidence against Zillow; and then go into the Witness Protection Program. Won't our friends in government, who gave us "the statutory non-employee", non commission sharing and mandatory agent service requirements protect our full commissions too?
The NAR can ask for our prayers. "Bless me Father for I have sinned". But the sins in Real Estate 1.0 aren't the same as the sins in Real Estate 2.0; where denial of data to be open is the First Cardinal Sin. Let's just hope the sins of the NAR, our Real Estate father, are not visited on its Realtor sons.
The NAR, Move Inc and Realtor.com can have Zillow declared a "Weapon of Mass Destruction", send it to Iraq and the INAR, and help the Republicans, now that the 2006 election is over. Who will you vote for in the 2007 election?
I want Google, Zillow and the other Search Engines on my Real Estate Team. Got Next!
Move over YouTube.
Happy Searching.
WebHomeUSAblog; The Blog of Real Estate Search Marketing
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