Last look before going to bed, I saw this image at Drew Meyers’ very insightful Insights weblog:
I bumped it up in FireFox and got the same image. Then I hit refresh and got a normal Zillow.com home page.
What had changed?
I know this won’t last, but I love it that I can bug people who work for multi-million dollar corporations in the dead of the night and have them answer me. I emailed Drew, and he replied in half an instant:
[W]e changed our wiki landing page, added page counters, and fixed some bugs.
The page counters are the primary feature that we added — which I think is a VERY cool feature (that numerous users requested). For instance, check this random house I just pulled up in Phoenix and scroll to the bottom of the page – http://www.zillow.com/HomeDetails.htm?zprop=7786893
This is the counter from that page, clipped to fit:
A small enough change, I suppose, but most big things are accretions of little things. And we didn’t have to wait to find out what had changed…
Technorati Tags: blogging, disintermediation, real estate, real estate marketing
Kevin Boer says:
My question is — What’s Drew doing working at 10:00pm? Ok, and what are you doing working at 11:00pm your time? Oh, and what about me?
We’re lost causes, I think. Combine the workaholic nature of a profession — real estate — and a personality — Type A techie — and you get a peculiar, and hard-working, combination.
February 20, 2007 — 11:08 pm
Greg Swann says:
Start-up mentality, too. I’ve traded mail with people at Trulia — including Pete Flint — in the dead of the night. I’ve never worked at a start-up — I haven’t had a job since 1993 — but I know that part of what makes them work is a Crusader’s mindset: We’re taking on the whole frolicking world! I deeply admire people who work that way.
February 20, 2007 — 11:19 pm
Drew M from Zillow.com says:
Kevin –
To be perfectly honest, it doesn’t even seem like work. I guess that’s what happens when you have a job that you love.
February 20, 2007 — 11:25 pm
Drew Meyers from Zillow says:
Just an FYI – for those interested in reading more, there is a post on the Zillow Blog about the page counters – http://www.zillowblog.com/zillow_blog/2007/02/how_many_people.html
February 21, 2007 — 9:06 am