I had an interesting discussion about Internet Portals and Verticals with one of my business mentors.
A decade ago, in the late 90's, everybody wanted to be "The Next AOL", and Moore's Law for the Internet meant: the number of free hours on AOL would double every 18 months.
Oh for the Halcyon Days of the Giant Portals, AOL, MSN and Yahoo, with their cash-cow subscription business models. It's hard to stop eating what keeps you fat and happy.
At first Google tried to sell itself to AOL, Yahoo and MSN for $1 Million. But, "Portal was King" and "Search had to just be good enough. So Google struck out on its own, borrowed Bill Gross' business model to monetize the click stream in Overture, and the rest as they say is history.
Google even provided search for Yahoo, until Yahoo felt Google, with all their new features and new traffic, was becoming too much of a competing portal. Yahoo now has its own search function.
The Google Playbook dumped the subscription model of AOL and Yahoo (and Realtor.com, Homegain.com, Homes.com, etc) and used their version of the Network Media Business Model:
Free Valuable Content (Search Results) > Drive Traffic > Sell Ads.
Yahoo was the first portal to dump their subscription service and "Go Google", followed most recently and reluctantly by AOL.
Zillow (Mr Barton's Neighborhood) is still the only major Rea Estate Website following the Google Playbook, providing: Free Valuable Content (Home value estimates) > Driving Traffic > Selling Ads.
But will Zillow be successful with the Google/Network Media Business Model? The jury is still out, but the VC's (Venture Capitalists) are still in, to the tune of $57 Million in 2 rounds of funding. The last $25 Million round coordinated by PAR Venture Capital, out of Boston and the East Coast, no less.
In several talks I've had with Venture Capitalists, they say AOL really blew it by not adopting the Google?Media Model sooner. It remains to be seen if AOL can ever play catch-up fast enough to recover.
We've now gone from everyone wanting to be "The Next AOL" to being "The Next Google", and "The Google of Real Estate". Zillow by using Google's business model first, is the heir apparent in Real Estate.
But Google didn't stop at becoming a Search Vertical. And Zillow isn't stopping at becoming a Home Valuation Vertical. Yahoo feared Google's evolution into an Internet Portal with all its great new features. Now Zillow's moving down that same road to Portal-dom.
Why does Zillow offer such great new, user-friendly, info-ladden features (Like Google does)? Why has Zillow beaten Realtor.com, HomeGain.com, Homes.com, etc to: Blogs, the Blog Carnival of Real Estate, free agent listings, Geographic Heat Maps, free home owner listings and now free neighborhood information?
Zillow is driving Traffic,Traffic,Traffic. That's a totally different mindset from driving Lead, Lead, Lead.
Do you care whether a visitor to your Website is going to buy or sell a house in the next 30-90 days? Zillow doesn't.
Zillow will capture our prospects early (First to market), when home sellers and home buyers first want a ballpark figure of their home's worth. Zillow is the starting point.
To drive traffic Zillow is taking other pages from the Google Playbook: Great features, FREE! Zillow provides content to capture visitor interest, not capture lead contact information.
They used to say: "Lead, Follow or Get Out of the Way". Now it's "Take Google's/Zillow's Lead, or you'll be pushed out of the way".
Just as Google sets the standard for Search, Search Marketing and became an Internet Portal; Zillow is setting the standard for Real Estate Search, Real Estate Search Marketing and is becoming a Real Estate Search Portal. I think they still let you buy advertising.
Adapt Or Die! Happy Searching.
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