There’s always something to howl about.

Color me stupid, but . . .

…I don’t get it.

The Future of Real Estate Marketing avers that Trulia.com’s release of its map interface is a shudder-inducing disaster for other developers. This on the heels of yesterday’s reporting on Zillow.com’s release of its API to individual brokerages. There’s more news on both announcements at RealtyThoughts.

Is this exciting news for Realtors? Possibly. Gee whiz technology is like CheezWhiz — a little goes a long way. There may actually be a qualified, motivated real estate buyer who says, “If only I could see all the properties on an interactive map.” If so, that person is only surrounded by eleven other qualified, motivated buyers saying, “If only there were more photos…”

That’s as may be, and this stuff will surely be deployed. If I were Trulia.com, I would hook into that Zillow.com back-end and disintermediate the behotches: All the usual Truila details-in-a-box plus the completely unreliable Zestimate. If Zillow won’t roll over, someone else will.

But this is my question: How the hell are either of these two quivering little firms going to make money on this? “Advertising!” they shout in unison, but the advertising is on their home pages, where these APIs aren’t. Each one has a little click-back button to take self-selected volunteers back to the home planet. But if I’m getting the milk for free at LargelyUnobjectionableAtlantaHomes.com, why the heck would I go to the dairy?

If anybody’s shuddering it could be because they’re getting the not-too-subtle idea that what the “2.0” in Web 2.0 means is that investors will be shooting themselves in both feet this time…

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