{"id":3202,"date":"2008-06-03T07:40:29","date_gmt":"2008-06-03T14:40:29","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/?p=3202"},"modified":"2008-06-03T07:43:48","modified_gmt":"2008-06-03T14:43:48","slug":"what-does-zillowcom-understand-that-truliacom-is-missing-thou-shalt-not-muzzle-the-ox-that-treadeth-out-the-corn","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/3202\/what-does-zillowcom-understand-that-truliacom-is-missing-thou-shalt-not-muzzle-the-ox-that-treadeth-out-the-corn\/","title":{"rendered":"What does Zillow.com understand that Trulia.com is missing? “Thou shalt not muzzle the ox that treadeth out the corn.”"},"content":{"rendered":"

I think that there may have been a time, in the blue-sky days of gray-skyed Seattle, when people with two-digit badge numbers at Zillow.com actually thought they might be able to disintermediate Realtors — much as Expedia.com had disintermediated travel agents. No one at Zillow will admit to this, but I suspect that a notion like this could have been in the original design parameters for the hypothetical software they were brainstorming in those days.<\/p>\n

If this is true, then, to their credit, they came to their senses. Presumably, they realized, first, that the National Association of Realtors is a ferocious criminal mob that will do anything to destroy perceived competition, and, second, that, as simple as it might seem from the outside, real estate representation is too complicated to be automated cost-effectively, at least for now. Instead, Zillow.com made a conscious and thorough-going decision to partner with real estate agents and lenders, offering them exposure on its platform in exchange for building out its content.<\/p>\n

You could argue that Trulia.com made a similar resolution, but it seems more likely to me that the San Francisco start-up is simply aping Zillow’s partnership with individual practitioners without really understanding it.<\/p>\n

From a distance, the differences in the partnering relationships of the two companies could not be more stark. At Trulia, the most important kind of partner is the one who can deliver the most listings. The hierarchy runs from brokerage chain to brokerage to broker to agent to seller.<\/p>\n

Zillow’s hierarchy is the other way around: The most important source of information about a home is that home’s owner. Next comes the agent, followed by the broker, the brokerage and the brokerage chain.<\/p>\n

In both cases, higher parties on the hierarchy have the power to override — and thus usurp — the contributions of lower parties. What this means in practice is that sellers and their listing agents are regarded as being the least authoritative sources of information at Trulia — and therefore the last in line to receive practical benefits from the leads that might be generated by the on-line reiteration of the agent’s listing of Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

I think that there may have been a time, in the blue-sky days of gray-skyed Seattle, when people with two-digit badge numbers at Zillow.com actually thought they might be able to disintermediate Realtors — much as Expedia.com had disintermediated travel agents. No one at Zillow will admit to this, but I suspect that a notion […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_crdt_document":"","jetpack_post_was_ever_published":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_access":"","_jetpack_dont_email_post_to_subs":false,"_jetpack_newsletter_tier_id":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paywalled_content":false,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[4,6,5,19,25],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-3202","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"hentry","6":"category-disintermediation","7":"category-marketing","8":"category-real-estate","9":"category-technology","10":"category-zillowcom","12":"no-featured-image"},"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":877,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/877\/feed-the-starving-realtybot-zillowcom-is-underwhelming-so-far-as-a-national-property-listings-service\/","url_meta":{"origin":3202,"position":0},"title":"Feed the starving Realty.bot: Zillow.com is underwhelming, so far, as a National Property Listings Service . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"January 9, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"I think I have to back off -- for now, at least -- from my earlier expectations for Zillow.com as an incipient National Property Listings Service. To this date, anyway, Zillow's appeal to sellers and listing agents has been underwhelming, at best. As I write, there are 19,250 homes listed\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":2022,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/2022\/will-zillowcom-capture-every-mls-listing-in-houston-the-fourth-largest-metropolitan-market-in-the-united-states\/","url_meta":{"origin":3202,"position":1},"title":"Will Zillow.com capture every MLS listing in Houston, the fourth largest metropolitan market in the United States?","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 10, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"From Houston RealNews:The Houston Association of Realtors (HAR) may be a whisker away from providing listings data to real estate valuation site Zillow.com. HAR Chairman Rob Cook released a statement today: \"Zillow receives four million visitors per month so we would certainly like to have our listings on the site...\"\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":195,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/195\/pinocchio-wept-the-map-is-never-the-territory-so-even-a-much-much-better-zillowcom-clone-would-not-be-able-to-evaluate-real-property\/","url_meta":{"origin":3202,"position":2},"title":"Pinocchio wept: The map is never the territory, so even a much, much better Zillow.com clone would not be able to evaluate real property . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"August 9, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"David G. from Zillow.com replied to my post yesterday which argues that Zillow.com Zestimates are bunk, which I had proved to my own satisfaction in an earlier post. I'm revisiting the topic -- to everyone's delight, no doubt -- because I want to drive the point home, and because I\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":134,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/134\/debunking-zillowcom\/","url_meta":{"origin":3202,"position":3},"title":"Debunking Zillow.com . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"July 25, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"Zillow.com got itself a ton of new venture capital yesterday, so today seems like a fine time to deconstruct its praxis. When Zillow was brand new, Catherine Reagor, the dippy local real estate reporter for the Arizona Republic wrote:Want a reality check? Go to zillow.com, a new Web site with\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Disintermediation"","block_context":{"text":"Disintermediation","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/disintermediation\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":585,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/585\/the-zillowcom-shake-down-bloodhounds-take-so-far-and-a-chance-to-win-a-bloodhoundrealtycom-tee-shirt\/","url_meta":{"origin":3202,"position":4},"title":"The Zillow.com shake-down: BloodhoundBlog’s take so far — and a chance to win a BloodhoundRealty.com Tee Shirt . . .","author":"Greg Swann","date":"October 30, 2006","format":false,"excerpt":"If Inman Blog sent you here, here is our side of the story so far:Welcome to Race Piracy 2.0: Zillow.com is targetted for the crime of having deep pockets...Zillow.com shake-down: This is the first shoe dropping...Zillow.com shake-down: Creeping disclaimerism as a subject-changing gambit...The Zillow.com shake-down: How the other shoe will\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":1329,"url":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/1329\/arizona-republic-realtors-side-with-zillowcom\/","url_meta":{"origin":3202,"position":5},"title":"Arizona Republic: Realtors side with Zillow.com","author":"Greg Swann","date":"April 21, 2007","format":false,"excerpt":"The Phoenix RE.net is heard from in a big way in an article that will appear in Sunday's Arizona Republic about the State of Arizona's attempts to stifle Zillow.com. Writes reporter Peter Corbett:A state agency's efforts to stop Zillow.com from offering property-value estimates in Arizona are drawing criticism from some\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Blogging"","block_context":{"text":"Blogging","link":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/category\/blogging\/"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3202","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3202"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3202\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3202"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3202"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.bloodhoundrealty.com\/BloodhoundBlog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3202"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}