4realz.net

If you’re running a website, did you give your favicon any love?  Do you even know what a favicon is?
A favicon is simple a mini-logo (icon?) that shows up next to your URL in most address bars. (Favicons also show up on the tabs of browsers and are often included next to articles you write [...]

I’m a huge fan of releasing interesting projects and seeing where the community will take things.    In terms of experimentation, the Hotlist has been a huge success, and I want to thank the dozens of folks who have signed up… and especially those who have posted microposts and/or comments.
In the past day, we’ve had some [...]

I thought it was interesting when he recently took a shot at Rich Barton and Pete Flint (twice), but my jaw dropped when I started reading his post criticizing (to put it nicely) Move’s opperation of Realtor.com.

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…than Trulia and Zillow combined.”
Can’t wait to check back in 2 years!

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…local content.

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Very interesting…

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“Over two days in June, we searched each site for three-bedroom, single-family homes on the market in Santa Monica.”
The results:

Zillow: 168 homes*
HomeGain: 142, 48 homes (depending on day)
ZipRealty: 126 homes
Yahoo Real Estate: 107 homes
Realtor.com: 103 homes
MSN Real Estate: 103 homes
RE/Max: 91 homes
Trulia: 77 homes
Coldwell Banker: 29, 96 (depending on site)
AOL Real Estate: 49 listings

These numbers [...]

…genius.

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it launched. That’s big money - so somebody definitely thinks there’s a payoff somewhere to be had. The only question is from where?“

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…the overall price of their featured listings with a revamp of their ad platform.
Some details… What used to cost $50/month for 10 listings now costs $39/month for unlimited listings.   In addition, as part of Trulia Pro, agents can also add unlimited spotlight ads.  So far, so good…
However, similar to Joel, a move toward “unlimited” ads [...]

I really want to thank the industry titans who participated in today’s podcast:

Michael Wurzer of FBS Data Systems & FlexMLS blog
Bill Lublin of Move Philly
Jeff Turner of Real Estate Shows
Mike Price: MLBroadcast

As well as all the people who listened in and provided wonderful chat commentary throughout the podcast. There were so many [...]

…never made much inroads with the real estate community (or real estate portals for that matter).   Imagine if the Realtor.com team had bought Outside.in instead of building the neighborhoods project.
And it really doesn’t matter if it was Zillow, Trulia, AOL, Yahoo or Realtor.com, it could be a win for the real estate portal (lots of [...]

…in Realty Quest.
Here are some of the things I wanted to talk about this week, but haven’t had the chance:

4RealzEd is coming to Pasadena on May 30! The buzz from the first two events has been wonderful and I’m already seeing people sign up without any real marketing on our part! [...]

thinks they should be one of the next stops on Microsoft’s buying binge.

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It’s a great question…
I thought I’d dive into this question a bit so I started writing a killer-post! My thought was to put together a fascinating post that described likely revenue opportunities at both Zillow and Trulia and I was even going to go so far as to estimate the value of Trulia…
However, [...]

DotHomes, Trulia, and RealEstate.com (and I’m sure others) have added Google’s Street Views to their home search tools.   Despite all the press releases flying around about this feature, the real innovation is on Google’s site since everyone is just tapping into their stuff and becoming ever more tied to the Google mapping solution.

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…hour on Trulia Voices, so I’m playing over there right now!
(And while I’m at it, I want to thank the Trulia folks for helping us build some pre-seminar buzz!   Between yesterday’s podcast and today’s Q&A session, they’re keeping me on my toes!)

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…their home search.
I think it is a great move by Trulia and outsourcing the task of collecting and organizing this task to Google has some obviously benefits over doing it in-house.  Collection/hosting costs are huge, but so are the potential legal headaches associated with being the original publisher of this information.

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…thinks so.
On Zillow’s failings:
“Zillow is so 2006. The business model is based on advertising CPMs, and now that the real estate bubble has burst, it’s much less fun to track the (sinking) value of your home. There’s more competition as well, including Trulia and Redfin.”
On Trulia’s success:
“If location, location and location are what real estate [...]

… rumor … confirmed.

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