What does it mean that the new rental valuation site (announced by Inman) is partnered with Zillow?
Speculation is that Zillow may be (at least partially) funding these guys. Anyone from Zillow care to clear it up?
(some names left anonymous to protect the innocent)
(Jay noticed this too!)
Phew! Now I think I’m caught up so that I can get back to regular updates!
Thanks a ton for the list, a bunch of great links
Wow, someone was really paying attention last week. Great recap, a lot of stuff happened last week! It was great meeting you and getting to know you better at the google party.
Thanks for the great recap Dustin!
You #41′d us 
Thanks Steve, Sara and Andy!
Sara: It was definitely a lot of fun meeting you as well! You were a rock-star taking the chance on bringing so many of us to the Googleplex!
Frankly, I don’t know how I managed to work at RE Connect either — I’m guessing the lack of sleep had something to do with it.
With a summary like this, who needs to attend! Thanks for taking notes.
Dustin – Thanks for the recap for those of us who could not attend. I am still waiting for Altos Research to head to the Midwest with their data.
Wow. Fantastic recap.
GREAT list, was fun catching up in NYC with everyone.
Two points of clarification.
1) Trulia expects to be profitable at some point in 2008, see last few paragraphs here http://www.truliablog.com/?p=261
2) comScore measures unique users and Hitwise measures individual visits which are two very different numbers, that’s part of the difference between the numbers.
See you all at Inman this summer.
Pete
hi dustin!
fantastic list. hanging with you is always a good time….4realz!
do you remember if we beat jon and sara at foosball at the google party? i had a little too much “google juice” if you know what i mean
best,
- rudy
p.s. glad you enjoyed the video
SWEET- Cliffnotes for Inman
KK’s right… who needs to go? We’ll just send you, a laptop, and a video crew next year and save on airfare and hotels
#11 – I agree that villagemaker might be a success but only in the fact that they will sell a lot of accounts. But of those that use it the success will be few and far between. See my post about social networks
#40 – when i saw that video i shot soda out my nose from laughing so hard
#42 – Loren is going to SF Connect
oops
i meant
#46 – Loren is going to SF Connect
Pete: So sorry for getting the profitability facts wrong. It’s not a good excuse by any means, but I’m going to blame it on the fact that I heard this on a night that started with a lot of free pink drinks thanks to the wellcomemat boys, so I must have been mixing things up. Lesson learned.
Good stuff Dustin, as usual. I wish I had been there myself. You know Christian at WellcomeMat is from my neck of the woods here in Marietta, GA? We partied here over the weekend, just because.
Interesting Brad… I had more a few drinks with Christian (and others from WellcomeMat) and walked away very impressed with that crew.
Great summary Dustin. Thanks for the props. Meeting you was one of the highlights of the trip!
Wellcomemat, pink vodka, my head still hurts…
Oh and as for #41 don’t ever stop. Many still don’t seem to get it. As for #35, I bent Lockhart’s ear about Phoenix. He wouldn’t budge off of Chicago…
My only problem with this list is that #41 should always be #1- don’t ever stop the e-link-alization
Great post. Looking forward to seeing what #18 is about.
Dustin. Yes I’m always thinking. I can’t stop myself. Great summary…but something tells me you’re leaving some stuff out.
LOL! Damon. You think so???
Thanks for plug Dustin! Sorry I missed you but I was really sick, and ended up in bed the next 2 days. At least I was able to make the panel and meetup with alot of bloggers I havent seen since SF. Hopefully next time we can catch up again!
I agree with KK – thanks for doing this. Loved Jeff’s and Teresa’s photos, although I don’t recognize 1/2 the people (time to update those profile shots people!)
It was great to be able to hang out Dustin. See you in SF.
MP
Noah. You did a great job up on stage. You were on quite the lively and opinionated panel. Great stuff!
Ines: Looking back over the photos and video were one of the key ways I wrote this post. Looking over the “evidence” I remembered a ton of interesting conversations!
Mike: It was great hanging out with you as well! SF should be a lot of fun and I know of at least one person/team that’s planning to add something special to the mix!
This is my favorite quote from your post dude:
“comScrore and Hitwise are measuring traffic on two different internets.”
Two different internets? Love that.
I came here looking for your contact info Dustin. After all the BS(ing) we did, we didn’t exchange cards. As for you comments about what WellcomeMat needs to do, you can bet that we are spending every waking hour of every day solving the exact issue that you point out. I got more than $5 placed on team WellcomeMat. We aren’t losing….period.
And btw…the issue of people having to market their videos for themselves is less about inefficiencies of WellcomeMat, and more about the fact that real estate search portals are lagging hard on their acceptance of video content. We don’t feel like distributing video content to generalist video portals (like YouTube) is at all worthwhile. Very few, if not zero, people search for real estate within generalist video sites and the SEO advantages are short term (not to mention that posting real estate videos within these sites is against most of their terms of service agreements). So, it’s all about context, and we have been t-ing up real estate portals to accept our content for a long time. We’re making headway.
Thanks for the mention Dustin. You are right on about the name. As you indicated we have indeed started a new company http://www.vendasta.com this is our “consulting company” and we already have quite a bit of business. We are also starting a real estate related venture (we have a new name) that will help real estate professionals utilize all social networks to connect to their social graph and get better insight and peripheral vision into consumer behaviour much earlier in the sales/buying cycle and to track and manage their online reputations.
I will be sure to keep you up to speed on our developments. We are currently raising some initial capital to aggressively pursue this software development. We feel a need for speed to market rather then bootstrapping it ourselves.
Best,
Brendan
Dustin,
You get all the rumors don’t you? I’m interested to hear more about #42, haha
Thanks for the recap…..you jarred my memory on a few things that otherwise may have faded into the google party abyss
Christian: Who needs business cards?
I just sent you an email!
-Dustin
Unable to attend in NYC, so thanks for the recap. Makes me wish it was July for the Connect08 in San Fran!
Dustin — I have to believe you didn’t miss anything worth passing on. This list is valuable on so many levels — thanks.
The common thread I keep hearing from those for whom I hold much respect, is the networking that went on in NY.
Would it be your contention also, the networking was the most valuable benefit taken away from the ‘Connect’?
Thanks again — the list is awesome.
Jeff: I’d have to agree that networking is the reason to go to a RE Connect conference. I’m positive there is LOTS and LOTS of great information being presented all day long, but I’m usually too busy meeting up with people to attend many of them.
#46: The REAL reason Dustin left Seattle.
Good seeing you and getting the chance to catch-up…
Dustin-
Didn’t get a chance to go…but after reading your post I have just gotten a big rush of adrenaline. Online Real Estate is just beginning…I better get back to work!
I still haven gotten #41, so don’t stop. I still feel dirty when I add tags
With only five listings in Brooklyn (push out the price range to show all homes), I must say I’m not impressed with FlyRig.
Mashable compares the site to Craigslist, but I’m thinking HotPads is a more obvious competitor (and they have ~37 rental listings within the neighborhood of Bay Ridge within Brooklyn).
…monthly payments, I’ve always thought it would be interesting to mix rentals and homes-for-sale based on this criteria. But now that I see it in action on HotPads, I’m not so sure (although it might just be the pulsating graphics that got to me). The folks at HotPads tried to help out by providing lots of variables that can be changed on the listing detail page (look for the Buy Vs. Rent Calc Tab), but my guess is that the results are sure to baffle the average consumer more than help.
In retrospect, I think the flaw in the logic is that people do not make the rent-vs-buy decision on a property-by-property basis.
Check the spelling… “rent/purchase”…
Whoops! Typing too fast!
Marian are discussing.
Jessie B 4:42 pm on February 7, 2008 Permalink |
I don’t zee Zillow API’s anywhere but I zee a lot of bluz and greenz that are zimilar to Zillows?
Drew Meyers from Zillow 4:44 pm on February 7, 2008 Permalink |
Hey Dustin-
I’m happy to clear things up on this issue. I’ll post a similar comment here that I posted over at ResidentialRentals last week:
To clarify the relationship between Zilpy & Zillow — there is no formal strategic partnership between our companies. Zilpy is, however, planning to use quite a bit of data from the Zillow API (I talked to their founder last week) as they continue to build out their website.
Hope this helps.
Dustin 5:52 pm on February 7, 2008 Permalink |
Thanks Drew.