Geekier than Geek Estate & Sweeter than Sweet Digs April 3, 2008
Sometimes, you find something in your own back yard that’s an unexpected & pleasant surprise. Like that hole in the wall teriyaki restaurant right by the office, I recently stumbled upon Redfin Developer’s Blog. And since that day of first discovery, I’ve come back often yearning for more.
I just wanted to thank the engineers at Redfin for blogging about their day to day life as web software engineers. As a fellow software engineer, I always like knowing “how they did it that”, “what are they up to now”, or even “WTF were they thinking” (just kidding on that last one guys).
Even though I tend to prefer SQL Server for my RE.net apps (I freely admit that I am biased), I really enjoyed their MySQL to Postgress & Elephant vs Dolphin posts (perhaps I have a database fetish?). I also learned something new & valuable from their CSS Sprites + Firefox Content Preferences = Site Go Boom post. Even the folks without software engineering degrees would probably enjoy their How to search Redfin directly from IE and Firefox & Syndicate Redfin Listings in WordPress posts.
Anyway, if you’re developing a RE.net web site, (or even if you aren’t), I think their developers blog feed belongs in your feed reader. Then again, I’m biased.
PS – I can’t believe you guys don’t have Coding Horror on your blogs you like list yet.
Sphere: Related ContentWhat are they doing now? February 27, 2008
Geez, just when I wanted to get a quick Zillow fix, they go sprucing & fixing. Maybe spring refactoring is coming early this year? And why don’t they deploy the new & improved bits to their production servers at 2 AM, when I’m not using the site! Oh well, at least Eppraisal and Cyberhomes were still up. 
Flying under the radar with the stealthy SecondSpace February 10, 2008
In Seattle, the real estate technology scene is pretty crowded. There’s the big 3: Zillow, Redfin, HouseValues. And then, there’s the cool 3: ActiveRain, Estately, and RealTech. Well, there’s another company in town, which will soon be joining the party.
Bellevue based, SecondSpace, was founded by Classmates.com executive Anil Pereira and former Microsoftie Alok Sinha, SecondSpace landed $6.6 million in venture funding from Ignition Partners over a year ago. Alok (their CTO) & Delane Hewett (their Software Architect) both had stints in the MSN HomeAdvisor teams (back in the Web 1.0 days), so they know the internet real estate space better than most new comers.
Pat Kitano of Transparent RE, talked about them 6 months ago when they came out of stealth mode, and starting flying under the radar. The most interesting thing about the company’s business plan is that they are attacking what appears to be small vertical niche. However, one does not talk venture capitalists into writing big checks for thinking small. Their sites, ResortScape.com and LandWatch.com are currently targeting consumers looking for vacation homes and vacant land. In future, they’ll probably target time shares, vacation homes in foreign countries, non regional visitors, and other second home ownership opportunities with additional sites targeted for those niches.
Technologically speaking, they have some very compelling technology under development and a very talented technical staff. On their blog, They’ve talked about using SOLR & Lucene as the basis for their search engine, which should give them a near term advantage until somebody does the same thing or writes a check for Endeca. The neural network based learning they employ, should help visitors find interesting properties easier (think of a Google-like search experience tuned for real estate) and it allows them distribute more qualified traffic to their customers (brokers, developers, etc) than a traditional means would allow. They also have even more interesting features on the drawing board, that I’m probably not at liberty to discuss, but I can say their job posting on Craigslist drops some big hints.
However, given that they only have 70,000 listings at the moment; it’s difficult to fully appreciate the impressive technical infrastructure they are building until they have more data to test it with. It’s kind of like test driving a Corvette on a short pot-hole filled road. You just know it performs better than the conditions will allow for. The problem is until the test track improves, you don’t really know how much faster the car really is.
The real question is there a market for a second home or vacation home real estate web portal, when the first home real estate market is struggling? And is that opportunity worth the millions Ignition Partners is investing? For comparison sake, a typical NWMLS IDX web site has about 56,000 listings right now and popular real estate blogs currently have a larger reach than Landwatch.com (their largest site). Even with hockey stick growth of 10,000 new listings a month, it’ll be another 7 years before they hit the million mark (which I think is the magic number of listings you need to have to be taken seriously if you have big aspirations). I think the only people that read their blog are their employees, their VC’s and I. I think they need more a LOT more listings and a LOT more traffic before they are taken seriously by the general population. That hockey stick growth better turn exponential or they better have very patient investors.
Perhaps most disconcerting, they have no visible marketing push, and no real buzz in RE.net blog-o-sphere. Maybe, they are just flying under radar of the public eye until their technological terror is fully operational? Maybe it’s because their business model and the community they serve are so different than the ones the titans Web 2.0 real estate are currently serving, that they don’t need to play by the same rules? Maybe developers don’t feel the need to read or comment on blogs? Maybe their business development leaders needs to read Seth Godin or Dustin Luther?
All I know is that sooner or later, they’ll need to soar above the clouds with after burners at full throttle or crash back to earth. They can’t fly under the radar forever with the firepower they are packing… Anyway, I’m going to be watching this company very closely. The technology under development is too compelling and the business plan is too interesting to stay under the radar at cruising speed for much longer. Will 2008 be the year SecondSpace goes supersonic?
Sphere: Related ContentDear Zillow-meisters – Better start makin’ copies of the Trulia-nator January 9, 2008
The folks at Trulia, have just released a new feature that is cooler than the frozen tundra of Lambeau Field. In fact, I think Zillow and Realtor.com will need to order more photocopiers. Trulia has just released their Trulia Publisher Platform, and the coolness of this feature is that it lets publishers use their search technology, with your listings, with a publisher’s co-branding, and at no cost to the publisher. This is the real estate equivalent of Google AdSense and will change the nature of the real estate web advertising game, perhaps drastically.
Currently, Trulia has signed up Kiplinger, American Towns, and perhaps most interesting, Seattle Weekly. Getting Seattle Weekly as a publishing partner has to annoy Zillow more than Apple giving free computers to Redmond-area schools annoyed Microsoft. If Trulia can sign up more publishers (frankly the value proposition is so simple & compelling for small to medium sized publishers, I can’t think of a reason why they won’t sign up) they are going to have to upgrade their servers to handle the increase in traffic.
What’s this mean for publishers? Well if they are small or medium sized, they just got a much more effective way of associating their brand and increasing real estate related web traffic. Granted, Trulia controls the listings and the technology, but if your core competency isn’t real estate search, getting a co-branded search tool is much more cost effective. And since Trulia has over 2 million listings, the publishers will probably get more traffic & ad revenue too. Seems like an easy decision to me.
If you’re a big publisher, it’s a much harder decision. But since developing technology is expensive and getting listings critical mass is difficult, I suspect the desire to partner w/ Trulia got much stronger unless you’re a direct Trulia competitor. If Trulia gets big web media players to partner with it, things could get very interesting.
What’s this mean for Realtor.com? I dunno, but it’s increasingly looking like they are going to get HouseValued (yes, I just made that verb up), if they don’t show some brain activity.
What’s this mean for Zillow? Just when Zillow’s listings feed program was getting off the ground, Trulia does this! I’m guessing the sales & engineering departments just learned what they are going to be working on for the next several months.
What’s this mean for the broker in the trenches or realtor on the street? Well, if you have a Trulia listings feed, you just got more free exposure. If you pay Trulia to feature your listings more prominently, well you just got a much better return on your investment. If you liked the free traffic Trulia gave you before, you’re going to LOVE them now. Perhaps even more than the 12th man, loves his Seahawks.
Sphere: Related ContentDeep thoughts & a shameless plug January 5, 2008
Happy 2008 everybody
For most of the past 6 months, I’ve been working too hard writing e-commerce software at my day job. So, in case you’re curious why I’ve had a lower profile than usual, it’s because I’ve been spending too much time living in e-commerce land, instead of real estate land. On plus side though, our big project is nearing completion and my software engineering skills are approaching Ninja Warrior levels, so I feel good about the year that just passed. Fortunately, I’ve still been reading RE.net blogs actively, despite the fact I haven’t been writing as much as I’d like. Frankly, my brain is kind of tired from trying to co-develop an Amazon clone for the past year.
As 2007 has come to a close, I’ve had to a chance to reflect upon what the past year has given us and where the future may take us. Despite the bearish real estate industry outlook nationwide, I’m an optimistic that 2008 will be a very interesting year. Here are my thoughts on the year ahead
Inman missed somebody
Although, Inman’s list of 10 people to watch is insightful, I personally would add Michael Wurzer of FlexMLS to that list. His recent passionate and tireless efforts to be an advocate for RETS, and his current efforts to bring many of the players of the industry together is very encouraging. I’d almost be willing to say 2008 will be the year of RETS, like 2005 was the year of the blog, 2006 was the year of AJAX maps & 2007 was the year of the feed. I’m starting to feel like RETS will be like NBA basketball in Seattle (just because it’s not here, don’t mean it’s not the real deal elsewhere), which is a marked improvement to how I felt a year ago. Perhaps, I need to write an Open Letter to NWMLS brokers, agents and vendors, similar to what Michael & David Harris have done to toward the industry?
Will data visualization be the next big thing?
I also think that Real Estate data visualization or analytics is bound to become a real big deal in the near future. The efforts of Altos Reasearch and Zillow are making it easy to convert market information into pretty pie & bar charts, and the heat maps from Cyberhomes and HotPads are very insightful. Granted, Wall Street has been doing some of this for quite some time, but I think the real estate industry is ready to take the next step. In order to create cool charts, you need the raw data, and RETS will make that possible (or at least much easier). Once Joe Broker can get at the raw data, the cool charts can come courtesy of Microsoft Office, Google’s new charting API, or something a bit more powerful. I get giddy just thinking about the possibilities.
I think it’s going to take more time, but I think heat maps are going to get much bigger / better too. With Microsoft finally adding first class geospatial support to SQL Server this year (finally joining the party that Postgress, IBM DB2, and Oracle were already at), and Microsoft’s & Google’s ongoing battle for control of digital earth becoming a fertile playground for other map/data vendors, I think the MLSes / big brokers will probably start embracing data visualization on their web sites, since the technology is becoming more affordable, easier to use, and because most brokers / agents want pretty charts & maps with their name & brand on it, instead somebody else’s.
The glass is still half full
Having lived through the great tech wreck (or dot.com bubble if you prefer) I think it’s helpful to remember that someday the mortgage meltdown and real estate slump will come to end. If you believe in the future of real estate in your community (and most of you wouldn’t be reading this blog if you didn’t), now is a great time to invest in your business or yourself while your competitors exit the business in bad times. If that means adding great people to your staff, encouraging the less effective agents to get out or get better or finding better opportunities elsewhere, learning more about technology, or just plain blogging more often, just do something, to make yourself better. When the market turns around, you’ll hopefully be more successful than ever with fewer competitors.
Also, despite the fact I often complain about the state of MLS data in the industry, the real estate industry aren’t the tech laggards they portray themselves to be. After the tech industry, real estate is probably a very close second in terms of blogging and consumer transparency. You’re probably among the leaders in using mobile technologies, you’re your helping push the limits mapping technology and helping vendors define the direction. For example, a typical e-commerce store finder is way inferior to the AJAX maps so many real estate web sites now have.
Warning: Shameless plug ahead
My star client (Gordon Stephenson of Real Property Associates) finally set up his Real Estate from the Trenches blog at http://blog.seattlehouses.com/. I especially enjoyed his predictions for the new year post. I also had next nothing to do with it (I only helped w/ domain black magic and added links to their blog from their main web site), he did all the heavy lifting himself (see anybody can set up a blog). I also want to thank him for his business this past year, and introducing me to Rod Mar’s (Seattle Times Sports Photographer) - Best Seat in the House blog. I have a new appreciation for photography & the Seahawks thanks to his entertaining blog. Anyway, add them both to your favorite feed reader.
A Fistful of Feeds September 15, 2007
Cue up the Ennio Morricone music and head for the hills! There’s been some recent talking among the town folk, about the feeding frenzy that’s happening out there on the wild web of the west. Let’s just say San Miguel will never be the same once the schema with no XSD enters town.
Just when you thought it was safe in digital listing land, it’s going to get a little wilder. You see, Jesse ‘Zillow’ James has got a new six shooter and is getting ready to take your listings, publish them for the world to see, and give the town sheriff something else to think about. Right now, Jesse is just at target practice, but high noon at the O.K. Corral is coming soon enough.
Even better, Jesse has been taking marksmanship lessons from Wild Bill Gates’ old play book. It’s every bit as clever as the lead shield old Clint used in the movies. You see, Zillow’s doing 2 things which show they’ve learned the “embrace and extend” tactics from yesterday’s web slinging masters.
First, Zillow is embracing Trulia’s feed format – This move means that anybody who already has a Trulia listings feed will be able to get their listings onto Zillow with than less than 10 minutes of effort (the amount of time it takes to fill out a form with your feed url). It’s entirely possible that by doing this, Trulia’s feed format will become the “de-facto” industry standard. (Which wouldn’t be all bad)
Secondly, Zillow’s extending the purpose of Trulia’s format, by coming out with their own feed format – OK, some of you are already thinking, oh great, another XML format I need to implement and support. However, I think Zillow will be able to garner support for their ZIF format because of the following reasons.
- Their spec is simple to understand. Unlike GoogleBase & edgeio, which seem to be trying to win an Obfuscated XML code contest with their name spaced RSS mess, Zillow’s feed documentation is every bit as clear as the current industry feed leader, Trulia.
- Their spec is comprehensive. The only industry schema that compares to the breadth and depth of the Zillow’s XML Schema is RETS. Except Zillow has the benefit of not having to getting 900 MLS boards to play nice together.
- Doc ‘Trulia’ Holliday is not dumb. A master gun fighter in his own right, nothing is preventing Trulia from embracing the Zillow feed standard as their V2 spec. If that happens, RETS may suffer the same fate as Lester Moore. Out here on the wild web of the west, there’s the quick and the dead.
- Oh yeah, they also get about 4+ million monthly visitors on their web site.
Anyway, grab the popcorn; it’s going to be show!
Sphere: Related ContentThere goes the neighborhood. A Redfin sign is on my street! July 21, 2007
Redfin got another $12 million in spending money from its venture capital masters this week. A lot of noise, speculation and jokes have been made in the old RE.net blogosphere about the old Redfiners this week.
Frankly, Redfin getting more spending money doesn’t really matter in the long run. Granted, I think we’d all like a couple million to grow our respective businesses, but hey, what can you do? They did a better job schmoozing a VC than we did. As the ever insightful, FoREM pointed out, Redfin is pursuing the classic “go big or go home” strategy. Many startups intentionally lose money during the first couple years of their existence in order to fund fast growth. I remember folks saying the same thing about Amazon.com 7-10 years ago, and despite the river of red ink that company had, they are still around and selling a lot of Harry Potter 7 books from what I hear. So, I don’t think it’s an unreasonable business tactic, especially since it’s not my money paying for it.
Having a cool website, offering discounted service, appearing on 60 Minutes and being constant blog fodder is a great way to get and stay in the public eye. However, in the end, it all boils down to how well they sell & buy homes for their clients. Ultimately, the level of service they provide and the value their clients felt they received will determine the ultimate success of the company.
From where I sit, it looks like folks in the neighborhood are giving Redfin a shot to earn their business. For example, Redfin is listing this fine home a block away from me and just listed my neighbor’s house down the street from me. Unfortunately, it also appears they recently lost a listing down the street, a couple blocks away from me to Coldwell Banker Bain “super agent” Christine Kipp. (Personally, I think the owner is asking for too much, but that’s just my unprofessional & untrained opinion).
The fact is, Redfin is growing locally (or getting lucky depending on your point of view) and has enough cash to annoy a lot of people for a few more years at least. I think the real test will be if their customers like them enough to give them repeat business and referrals. In terms of technology, I think it’s going to be a real battle between Redfin & John L Scott, so a great web site won’t be enough for them to get ahead locally. In the rest of the country (where the cool web site contest is less competitive), Redfin’s web site might be a big competitive advantage.
So, how well is Redfin serving their clients? Well, I really have no data and no idea (other than seeing more Redfin signs in the neighborhood than I used to). I do know they are trying to keep their customers happy and they do offer a 100% Customer Satisfaction. A few months ago, I didn’t see any signs. Today, I see two or three. In a few months, perhaps I’ll see more? Anyway, time will tell if the red in Redfin is from the sea of red ink or the blood of ineffective traditional realtors. So, if you’re worried about the red finned shark, just become a better piranha. It’s a big ocean, and there’s plenty of bait & anchovies for everybody.
PS – I got my new monitor this weekend. Thanks again everybody, for your monitor insights in your remarks to my last Redfin post.
Sphere: Related ContentReal Estately on Rails June 29, 2007
Looks like our friend Galen has been busy….
In case you haven’t heard, ShackPrices has been rebranded Estately. With a new name, a new logo and a more publicized business model, it appears this old Shack has been retired. Here’s what the ole RE.net blog-o-rama has posted thus far…
- Bloodhound Blog
- The Real Estate Bloggers
- John Cook’s Venture Blog
- The blog formerly known as ShackPrices Blog
Before you all say HouseValues 2.0 or HomeGain SP1, I think the Estately business model seems pretty sound (for a lead generation / referral model).
Galen, correct me if I’m wrong, but I assume by taking a 12% cut of the agent’s commission, Estately only gets revenue if a closed transaction occurs (and the agent gets revenue from your referral)? Also, Estately doesn’t ask you for personal information unless you are actually looking for agent, so you are giving your customers a high quality lead (unlike some other companies that sell leads that resemble a Bart Simpson crank call to Moe’s Tavern). What’s really interesting is that they match agents to potential clients using Wetware (a/k/a humans) and not just some tricked out SQL statement, in order to help guarantee that consumers and agents will have a pleasant and successful transaction.
Galen, couple questions for ya…
- Who does your creative work (coming up with name, the logos)? Whoever it is, buy them a beer! A good one like Pyramid or Redhook!
- Has anybody submitted any good tag lines yet? (”We put the e in stately”)
- How long did it take to change the site name/images/documentation/branding from ShackPrices to Estately? (I remember being a part of product/feature renaming issues in my Microsoft days and it’s surprising how much work a single name change can take…)
- What are your expansion plans (I assume dominate the NWMLS service area, go where the winds of the marketplace take you?)
- When are you going public again? I think it’s finally time to buy some House Values PUTS…
Anyway, I wanted to congratulate Galen and Doug on their hard work and success to date, and wish them well on their future adventures.
Sphere: Related ContentIt was a Busy Week in the Jungle June 25, 2007
eBay and Google kind of make up – sort of
Nearly 2 weeks ago, I relayed the story of eBay & Google’s corporate cat fight. Well, eBay has decided resume their advertising on Google, but they will be relying on alternative advertising services to a greater degree. This is good news for Yahoo and Microsoft and it could be good news for you. You see, one potentially positive side effect of eBay of advertising less on Google, is that it might be easier for the rest of the world to win AdWords keyword auctions. If eBay bids less aggressively or doesn’t bid at all on certain terms, the reduced demand may push prices lower. Probably won’t happen, but it’s a nice thought anyway…
New top Yahoos
Terry Semel, resigned as CEO of Yahoo this past week. Much has been made of Yahoo’s inability to be Google, and Semel’s been in hot water for most of the last year. Additionally, Wenda Millard, chief sales officer in the U.S., resigned yesterday. Yahoo said it hopes the latest shake-up will streamline its sales to advertisers and hopefully the changes will make their customers happy (or at least the Wall Street hot shots calling for the executive shake-up).
Yahoo founder, Jerry Yang, gets to be CEO again. It’d be interesting to see if Yang will turn into the second coming of Steve Jobs or Michael Spindler.
Yahoo Maps – Is better than before, good enough?
Recently I noticed that Yahoo made some changes to their mapping platform. Among the improvements are the additions of European driving directions, terrain overlays, improved identification of neighborhoods, the ability to request driving directions by landmarks, and improved readability. Surprisingly, the reaction among Yahoo fans has been less than enthusiastic. Apparently, Yahoo is no longer using Decarta as their mapping engine but instead relying on in-house technologies, so they can better control their own destiny.
Unfortunately, Yahoo has been losing mind share & market share in local search and mapping to Microsoft & Google. Now that Yahoo controls its own destiny, it’ll be interesting to see if they catch up to Google (since they are still using Decarta) or Microsoft (which has always used in-house technologies). I hope the Yahoo guys can stay in the game. I really like their mapping API and they’ve done some innovative (if underappreciated) work.
Microsoft – Not making things easy for Google or Yahoo
Microsoft appears to be taking a lot of street level pictures. Can street level be far behind?
Sphere: Related ContentWelcome to the jungle – eBay vs Google June 15, 2007
Every once in a while, a corporate cat fight in the tech world breaks out that demands my attention. Recently, eBay pulled all of its advertising from Google’s U.S. network. Apparently, Google crashed eBay’s user conference, eBay Live, and went about hawking its online payment service, Google Checkout. They’ve also been lobbying eBay to start accepting Checkout.
Needless to say, eBay wasn’t too pleased with Google’s action. Especially since Checkout is a rival to eBay’s dominant PayPal and eBay is Google’s largest U.S. customer. In fact, eBay runs more than double the number of ads as Google’s #2 customer (Target). I’m sure there is competitive tension between eBay’s Skype and Google’s Talk IM products which won’t help matters any.
Anyway, an eBay spokesman described the abrupt advertising freeze as an experiment, to see if eBay can get better financial returns from Google’s rivals. It’ll be very interesting to see if how this battle plays out for many reasons… eBay is playing the life without Google game with real money. Analysts estimate that eBay’s business represents 1% of total gross of Google’s revenues, about $170 million/year. This move obviously isn’t fatal, but it’s big enough to hurt and leave a bruise.
In any event, eBay’s move sets a very interesting precedent. What happens if other partners and Google advertisers decide the best way to counter their fear of Google is to hit back? Although Microsoft’s search efforts have been much maligned, it is better than the common perception. Perhaps, this is the break Microsoft or Yahoo needed in order steel some of Google’s thunder?
At any rate, the best theory I’ve heard so far is that eBay’s 2nd quarter is in the bag, and they want to give Google something to think about, before they go back to business as usual in the 3rd quarter. eBay can’t really break their Google addiction, can they? If eBay can live without Google, will others be brave enough to follow? Is your online advertising strategy merely getting Google love at any cost or is it more diversified?
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