Follow Me at twitter.com/andykaufman (2008-01-18)
January 18, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
- My thoughts on the state of Trulia Voices – http://tinyurl.com/2ay54t #
- @tboard – don’t forget about his clones. you can’t have hundreds of kids, a harem, & still be on every socnet all the time (except sunday) #
- Grabbing a bite to eat and then heading to the BAWB meeting – http://urltea.com/2jb1 #
- OH: its not a liquidity problem, its a solvency problem. #
- OH: who do you trust? I trust data. Without it Id make the same mistake that everyone else does. #
- There’s an interesting business blogging strategy discussion going on over at @tyr ‘s 4realz – http://urltea.com/2je5 #
- Damn, missed my transcendental 600 follower 600 following moment. If anybody wants to teach me the handshake for the 600 club, DM me.
# - Check how @terilussier is working Twitter into her hyper-local blogging strategy – http://tinyurl.com/ypnflu #
- Todd Carpenter coins the term ‘Linkation, location, libation’ and I agree with his strategy – http://urltea.com/2je7 # Read more
Follow Me at twitter.com/andykaufman (2008-01-17)
January 17, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
- Heading down to the The Ellington, a new dev @ Jack London Square in Oakland for the sales office unveiling. http://www.the-ellington.com/ #
- Looking for a ‘bare bones’ budget computer recommendation for a friend. All she really wants is to surf the interweb. Any suggestions? #
- whoa. thanks for all the suggestions. i really appreciate it #
- @realtortoby – CL is an amazing source of unintentional comedy, unfortunately so is the MLS. # Read more
Changing the Conversation Over @ Trulia Voices
January 17, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
If you look on the right sidebar, you’ll see that I’m a ‘Local Ambassador’ for the SF based Real Estate search site Trulia. Basically this means that every now and then, I take some time to answer questions from home buyers and sellers on Trulia Voices.
I used to really enjoy doing it, but over the past few months not so much.
First, agent to agent talk started increasing and taking over a forum that was supposed to focus on RE professionals answering questions posed by consumers. While this diluted the purpose of the forum, I wasn’t too worried that it would completely change the dynamics of the forum for the worse.
One thing that DID start to bug me, and many agent contributers that I talk to, was that I didn’t feel like I was getting anything in return from taking the time to give well thought out answers and that many of the professionals were giving shoddy, spammy answers.
Although I haven’t heard directly that someone wanted to work with me after reading my voices answers, I believe that my answers are contributing to my professional online reputation and they’ve also given us a voucher for a free months worth of featured placements for our listings in return for participating. (which I’ve still got to get around to using). For these reasons, I’ve decided to give them a pass on the ROI thing for the time being.
My real gripe with Voices in it’s current form, is with the pervasiveness of the anti-REALTOR sentiment and overall vibe of the forum. More often than not, I’ve left the place feeling dirty and used and that’s not going to work for me if I’m going to continue contributing to Voices. I’m not sure how to deal with this problem, and I know that the Trulians are probably actively searching for ways to fix it, but it’s not going to go away without them taking some sort of action.
Today, Trulia decided to cordon off an area for agents to speak to other agents directly, and called it Agent2Agent. This should help define the conversation a bit and also means that agents no longer will be acting outside the guidelines by engaging each other instead of the consumer.
Greg thinks this means that they’re gunning for ActiveRain. I’m not so sure about that and agree with Dustin that they’re doing this to segregate the conversation, which I think that it will help do.
Hopefully the changes that they announced today will mark the start of the turnaround and hope that more changes are in store.
I’d love to start to visiting again without feeling like I have to take a shower afterwards.
Are Zillow, Trulia, Yahoo! & Google Ready to Adopt RETS?
January 3, 2008 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Yesterday, in an open letter to the heavyweights of real estate tech, newly-elected chair of the Real Estate Standards Organization, Michael Wurzer called on them to join together with the real estate community in supporting the Real Estate Transaction Standard (”RETS”).
In response to his letter, he got commitments from all 4 to meet during the upcoming Inman Real Estate Connect Conference in NYC.
Over the past year or two, managing & distributing listing data has become a huge pain in the butt, and by adopting a single standard for listing data, brokers will be able to
- Enter their listings only once.
- Send their listings to just the sites they want, easily.
- Not have to pay someone to manage a bunch of data feeds.
- Make sure their listings are updated right away when something changes.
- Not get calls or e-mails on listings that are already sold or expired.
- Get calls or e-mails on listings as soon as the data is entered.
Sounds good, eh? Sure does to me.
In a follow up post today, Wurzer asked, Do Brokers Care About RETS? I commented that I’m fairly certain that they would, if they knew about it; unfortunately most brokers have NO IDEA what it is and how it can benefit them.
That’s why I decided to get involved and joined the RETS Marketing workgroup.
I’m sure you’ll be hearing more from me as I get more involved, but I think the reaction to yesterday’s post is a step in the right direction and I’m looking forward to getting involved.
(h/t to David Harris for this tweet)
Is Zillow Headed for Trouble?
December 18, 2007 by Andy Kaufman · View Comments
Paul Kedrosky seems to think so.
I wonder what he thinks about Trulia’s future? While Zillow’s traffic seems to stagnating, Trulia’s appears to be rising steadily.
Another thing to keep in mind is that Trulia has only raised $18 million to date, while Zillow is up to $87 million in funding.
One last little tidbit… we ask almost everyone we talk to, “What online tools are you using in your homesearch?” I’d estimate that less than 10% have even heard of Trulia or Zillow. I wonder if Scripps approach with FrontDoor will have any better luck in getting their message out. (For more on Scripps’ strategy, check out Joel’s recent write up)
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