Tag Archives: Trulia

I believe that real estate agents are either in marketing or…

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  1. Google is doing a major update on their backlink calculator. One of the updated datacenters is showing over 1600 backlinks to RCG while the regular search is still only showing 733. This is great news! The more often Google re-indexes backlinks the better because we get so many more (recognized) backlinks than the typical agent website and I’ve noticed that each time Google updates these backlinks (they only do it every 3 to 6 months), we placed much better in organic search results shortly thereafter. Yum!
  2. Talking about organic search results, I let Greg know that I thought he was potentially hurting himself in Google by posting identical articles on both his regular blog and his ActiveRain blog (no longer available). Put very simply (and definitely an oversimplification), when Google sees two identical articles, they are forced to make a choice in determining which article is “good” and which one is “spam”. Assuming you don’t want either of your sites to be labeled “spam”, then don’t have identical content floating around in full. (When a spam site copies your articles in full, you’re just have to trust that Google will figure it all out!) If you’re going to put articles on more than one site, make sure that you change things up a bit, or better yet, summarize the article and link to your main site where the full article can be found. I would point out some of the other people besides Greg who are doing this same thing on ActiveRain, but it appears that word travels fast via email and most of the guilty have taken their ActiveRain blogs down (Joel being the only exception I’ve found at this point… and he really should not be doubling up his content at this point considering he’s still in the process of “teaching” google about his new domain.)
  3. However, all this makes me feel bad… Matt, I promise my intentions were good and I wasn’t looking to get people to drop their activerain blogs. I think you’ve got a great platform and others should definitely consider blogging on your site. I just wanted to warn people that they might be committing googlecide (a great phrase coined by Greg!) if they post identical content in both places! For everyone’s benefit, Matt Cutts gives a comprehensive explanation on how to get re-included in Google searches should your site ever be listed as spam, but I don’t think that should be necessary as the re-inclusion request is typically for sites that have actively tried to trick Google in ways much more devious than duplicate content.
  4. Steve Hurley let me know about his new blog for the Tacoma area (South Sound) and he asked for some advice on how to get more readers. My advice: start linking to other real estate blogs! There are a lot (a ton!) of real estate blogs with good content that will never get “discovered” because they live in their own bubble (yes, real estate has lots of bubbles!). I think a lot of real estate agents have a view that they are smart enough to be the one and only resource of real estate information. Even if that held water, very few agents are good enough to break out of the mold without some major help from other real estate bloggers. So, regardless of how good your stuff is, find someone else to link to in every post! Really, every post!
  5. Another way to drive traffic is to leave comments on other people’s blogs. The nice part about leaving a comment is that you’ll get a link back to your blog with each and every comment. However, that won’t generate traffic nearly as effectively as if other bloggers are linking to you within their posts. What is the most effective way to get the attention of other bloggers so that they will link to you? Link to them! Want more? Here are the three most important elements of real estate… blogging: Linkation, Linkation, Linkation.
  6. Greg: Ardell’s going to kill me for that title. I promise I wrote it before I became a believer in the church of Ardell! 🙂 I really wish I could give you a “on a related note” to this story, but I simply can’t blog about a meeting I had last week with the master of real estate marketing…
  7. I agree with Chris Pirillo that social bookmarking buttons have gotten out of hand. I’ve not added any to RCG because it seemed like it took up valuable real estate and I’m not sure it provided a valuable service to our readers. The only one I’ve considered adding is del.icio.us, but considering most del.icio.us users have a button installed on their browser (they tend to be a tech-savvy bunch), I’ve never bothered. Adding a button for a site like digg (let alone sites like reddit) seems pointless for a real estate blog since I’ve never seen one real estate article promoted by those communities. (In other words, why would I give them an ad (i.e. their logo) on every one of my posts if they are never going to send me traffic?)
  8. I want one… Sony is preparing to introduce a light-weight geocoder with software to make geocoding photos easy. Although I wish geocoding photos was easier than dragging along another device…
  9. Taken one step further (and two steps too far): Wouldn’t it be great if you could search for an item based on where you were when you were working on the file? As in, “I remember taking those notes while in San Francisco…” and then have a document filter based on where you were when you made those edits (obviously, this only makes sense if you’re working on a laptop or mobile device). The secret weapon in this idea would be taking advantage of the wifi positioning from Loki so that you don’t have to lug around another device…
  10. Everyone knows that Loki was the god of mischief, right? (Due to a simple twist of fate, I know a lot more about Nordic gods than I do bible stories, but I can’t go there because I’ll get to sidetracked…). Well, the mischievous people over at Trulia have blocked Move’s IP address so that I didn’t read what Greg liked so much about their post until I got home. (I know I could have proxied in, but I didn’t bother). Anyway, the article is hilarious and definitely shows the benefit of not taking yourself too seriously. Tell your kids: real estate is fun!!!

Corporate Blogs – Yes please!

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RSS IconDustin’s comments in his last blog post got me thinking (which is never a good thing). Dustin said “You just set my blogging efforts at Move back by a year or so”. To which I reply, “I hope not! You don’t have that much time!”

One of the cool good things that has happened recently is the rise of corporate blogging. What’s interesting is you’re finding them in places you wouldn’t expect. Did you know Dell has a blog, meanwhile Apple does not? I think it’s an excellent way for a company to get in touch with it’s customers (and vice-a-versa), without the reality distortion and corporate hubris that happens when communicating via a scripted “public relations firm” message.

You may be surprised to learn that even the venerable General Motors has blog (In case anybody from GM management reads this – Good luck turning the company around and keep up the great work at Cadillac and Saturn. I’m rooting for you). If a 100 year old company in the rust belt has seen the value of blogging, I have to wonder why hasn’t every large company? 

In case you doubt the potential of corporate blogging, look no further than Microsoft. Robert Scoble helped put a human face on the “evil empire”, by spearheaded Microsoft’s Channel 9 video blogs and wrote the book on corporate blogging. When he left Microsoft for PodTech, it created nearly as much news as when Bill Gates announced his “retirement”. An anonymous Microsoft employee, through his blog has changed the company for the better. Even though the Human Resources dept has a blog, and prominent engineers have them too, a small corporate blog can as useful as the MSDN blogging network is to the “Redmond Giant”.

I personally enjoy reading Zillow’s blog, RedFin’s blog, and Trulia’s blog every day. Even the HouseValues’ blog can be interesting on occassion (it seems like they have a fun corporate culture, even if they just sell leads for a living). But where is the John L Scott, Coldwell Banker and Windermere blogs? I know countless agents of those brokers and independent brokers blog and do it very well (I think I’ve seen most of them on Rain City Guide at one time or another), but where is the human voice of those companies? They should at least give me a way to search for their agent’s blogs. Are these brokers nothing but a logo for an agent to put on their marketing? They may not realize it, but I think they are losing mind-share (which may become market-share) by being silent in the blogosphere.

Which brings me back to my original question, regarding Dustin’s comment. When is Move going to get a corporate blog?

Although, Rain City Guide is an excellent blog, it’s not the most appropriate venue for Move specific information (nor should it be). Why hasn’t Move added RSS feeds to any page that offers e-mail alerts? How are Move’s product offerings better than other things out there? What cool stuff is Move is doing? Why would a Software Engineer want to work there? Why should a realtor advertise with Move instead of one of these “Web 2.0 upstarts”? Heck, why not feature profiles of happy customers (something HouseValues does well)? I’d love to hear somebody explain the the Innovator’s Dilemma that Move faces to your constituency, so they’d understand why Zillow, etc are steeling the mind-share that realtor.com used to have. What’s the best MLS in the country to deal with and why? If Dustin or his co-workers explained why things are the way they are, maybe somebody in a position to change things would read the blog and start talking? After all if GM blogs, the CEO of Sun Microsystems has a blog, and Mini & Scoble can change Microsoft, I think anything is possible.

I’m not trying to pick on Dustin, but I really want to add the Move blog to my RSS feed reader and I can’t!

Real Estate Search Demographics

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If you haven’t seen it, Microsoft released a demographic tool that gives the estimated demographic for a search term and/or URL. Just for fun I threw a few of the major real estate technology sites (as well as the search term [real estate], kept track of the results, and that pushed this chart out of Excel:

[photopress:real_estate_search_demographics.gif,full,centered]

So, assuming that Microsoft’s numbers are correct, what patterns emerge?

  • The search term [real estate] tracked really low for people under 18 and high for people between 25 and 34 (kinda makes sense!), but none of the websites tracked near these extremes.
  • HomeValues and HouseGain… I mean HouseValues and HomeGain attract nearly identical audiences.
  • Trulia and Zillow attracted almost identical audiences as well (never off my more than 2% for any demographic)
  • Zillow had the most balanced demographic pattern with between 18% and 22% in each category.

Note the obvious: Microsoft only has demographic information on people who give it this information. This means that the data is just as suspect as the Alexa data.

Inman’s Innovation Awards!

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Congrats goes out to all the contributors on Rain City Guide! We were nominated as a finalist for the “Most Innovative Blog Award” by Inman News. In my world, contributors are not only the people with their photo up on the sidepanel, but also those of you who return to give your comments on a regular basis. This site thrives off of your continued involvement!

The winners in each category will be announced in SF at the Inman Connect Conference. I’m definitely going to be there (I’m speaking on a panel on lead conversion)… Additionally, I would really enjoy organizing a meet-up of bloggers one evening. If you’re interested in joining us, then leave a comment below and I’ll send details as things get closer!

[photopress:Luther_engineering.jpg,thumb,alignright]In the meantime, I’m not proud to say that I didn’t know many of the non-blog nominations so I spent some time this evening on google researching the other companies nominated. Here are some notes (or at least links) I took while scanning the other nominees.

Most Innovative Brokerage

I wish Inman provided some more context so that I could know why they picked these particular real estate brokers. If anyone can let me know what sets these firms apart, please share!

Most Innovative Web Service

[photopress:Luther_engineering_2.jpg,thumb,alignright]Most Innovative New Business Model

Most Innovative Real Estate Blog

Most Innovative Real Estate Data Site

[photopress:Luther_engineering_3.jpg,thumb,alignright]Most Innovative Technology

Most Innovative Mortgage Company or Service

Most Innovative Media Site

Most Innovative Rental/ New Home Online Service

The Mind of a Home Buyer

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So, we’re moving to Southern California, and we have some obvious questions we want answered:

  • What neighborhoods should we be looking in?
  • What neighborhoods can we afford?

Here’s what we do know:

  • I’m going to work at location 30700 Russell Ranch Rd, Westlake Village, CA.
  • We can afford a home in the $500 to $600K range.
  • I’m willing to commute a fair distance (up to 40 minutes) if the home was a great deal, but I’d really rather be within bicycling distance to work.
  • The employees of Move that I talked with recommended Thousand Oaks (10 minutes), Santa Barbara (45 minutes) and Santa Monica (45 minutes).
  • If we can’t afford something in our price range that is acceptable, I’d consider renting a place, especially if it was close to the beach.

Anna and I spent some time on the internet playing around. We tried what I thought would be the most promising options: Realtor.com, Trulia and Zillow. I know that none of these sites is geared toward finding appropriate neighborhoods, but I thought I might be able to “trick” them into helping us out:

  • Realtor.com. I began by doing a search of [3 bedroom homes in Westlake Village, CA]… Surprise, surprise, the only home listed under $600K are mobile homes (and yes, there is a mobile home listed for $599K). I didn’t really expect to find a home in Westlake Village, but I was hoping that I might be able to do a large-area search using this tool, so that I might be able to get an idea where a concentration of appropriate homes are located, but there was no (obvious) way to widen my search using the available tools. Next I turned to their beta map search. This was more helpful in that it gave me homes nearby Westlake village, but it was not entirely clear to me how it determined it should widen my search. And scrolling around the map doesn’t refresh it with new properties as one would hope. Because we don’t even know the cities/zip codes we want to look in, I couldn’t keep Anna interested in searching around the beta site and we moved on after a few minutes.
  • Zillow was a bit better because I could zoom in and see a price next to each City’s name. Presumably, this is the average price for the City, but I’m not 100% sure of this. However, smaller cities (and/or huge neighborhoods in the case of Los Angeles) don’t show up. Until I zoomed into each individual property, there was not an easy way to tell if I could afford the area. Overall, we gave up on Zillow after a few minutes as I couldn’t “trick” it into telling me about appropriate neighborhoods.
  • Trulia was definitely the best of the three… I could give it a very detail search entry [3+ beds, $550K to 600K, Westlake Village], and then scroll around the map to see what neighborhoods might work for us. It also had the bonus of showing us “average home prices” depending on where you center the map. (i.e. if I’m over Thousand Oaks, I see the average 1, 2, 3 and 4+ bedroom price!).

Here is what I learned from Trulia from my search:

  • There’s no chance we’re going to buy a home along the coast of Santa Monica or Malibu (I didn’t really expect that this would be an option, but now it is confirmed).
  • If we want to buy a place within biking distance, we may be able to afford something in Thousand Oaks. My brief foray into Realtor.com hinted that a place in Thousand Oaks would likely be a townhome.
  • There are a lot more options either north (Simi Valley) or west (Camerillo, Oxnard, or Ventura), but the dream of owning in Santa Barbara is definitely out of the picture.
  • It looks like there might be something available for us in “the valley”, but both Anna and I want to go in the other direction if possible.

We’re thinking of making a trip to LA relatively soon to check out neighborhoods and tour some homes. Is it enough for us to check out the Ventura and the Simi Valley/Thousand Oaks area, or should we add a few different neighborhoods/cities to our radar?

Of course, the home search process definitely makes me wonder if the LA market has topped off and if it might make a whole lot more sense for us to rent (could we be near the beach?). If I do decide to look further into renting, I’ll definitely post an review of my online search.

Interesting side note: Despite my proclaimed confidence in “context” tools like blogging, I haven’t yet turned to blog posts and/or forums for any answers about neighborhoods (nor have I felt compelled to click on any ads).

Why Google Base Matters

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If you are building a real estate search site and you didn’t hear the warning shot fired by Google today, then you don’t really deserve to be in business much longer. While just about anyone building a real estate search tool should be concerned, I’m going to focus this article on my friends over at Zillow…

Zillow: be worried… Be very worried.

Here’s some background… Yesterday I was playing around with some google searches when I noticed a new box that shows up when you do a real estate search… as in [Seattle+real+estate]:
[photopress:google_search_box.jpg,full,centered]

This takes you to a simple (and kind of ugly) results page:
[photopress:google_result_page.jpg,full,alignright]

Where you can also go to a simple (and not very user-friendly) map of listings:
[photopress:google_result_with_map.jpg,full,centered]

My impression of Google’s latest features is that the data is VERY incomplete and the interface is ugly.

So, why should the people behind Zillow be worried?

Three reasons:

  1. You are not sticky. I’m a hard-core real estate user and after satisfying my Day 1 voyeurism, I’ve never had a good reason to visit your site again. I’ve talked with your staff about this and I know that you are not geared toward a user like me, but I recommend you find a way to create stickiness if you really are planning to be an ad-based media company. Why? See reason #2…
  2. A super-sticky site only has to be half as good at proving a home valuation to decimate your business. People who start their home search on-line do not start a home search by typing in [www.zillow.com] or even [www.realtor.com]. People start a home search (and especially people moving to a new city) by typing a query into a google search box. From now on, those people are ALL going to see Google’s offerings, and should Google decide to add a valuation tool, the tool will likely be “good enough” so that they never even both going to Zillow. Google only has to be good enough at providing a valuation in order to capture most of your market. Why? See reason #3…
  3. People are lazy. People don’t use your site to get the “exact” price of their home since you don’t even try to provide it. If you asked 10 appraisers to value a typical Seattle home, you would get 10 different answers and at least a 5% standard deviation in their answers. Even if you can improve your answers by 2% more to match the variability inherent in the emotional decisions associated with buying a home, that is still not good enough. Don’t waste much more time trying to improve your appraisal methods. You’re good enough and soon others (like Google?!?) will have a service that is good enough as well. Instead, find something sticky. You have a very talented team, so I doubt you’re suffering from lack of ideas. Nonetheless, it is clearly time to develop something that will bring me back to your site on a regular basis.

To everyone else creating real estate search tools, I’m not convinced that a vertical real estate search will ever beat Google’s offerings UNLESS they have a much better database of homes than Google. Right now, Google is seriously lacking in quality inventory. However, if the consumers go there (and they will), then you can expect brokers (and someday brokerages!) to follow with their listings.

Who is Trulia Serving?

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It was wonderful to have some quality time with the Trulia last night and I had a blast chatting about real estate search with them.

Sami and Kelly were great sports and the group ended up spending about an hour and a half discussing Trulia’s business plan and how others (like RCG!) might plug into their “platform”.

Seeing as how I posted the invite to the “chat” a few hours before the event, I didn’t expect too many people and was pleasantly surprised at the turn-out:

Interestingly, we dived into some questions I had about their business model pretty darn quickly and because I would completely fail if I tried to articulate the opinions of each of the participants. Instead I’ll only give my take on the Trulia’s place in future of real estate search (and welcome other participants to write up “meeting notes” if they are interested).

Most of my questions revolved around how Trulia planned to serve these four main groups (I’ve also included the ways they might serve these groups):

  • Brokerages: with (1) exclusive listings and/or (2) enhanced placement.
  • Agents: with (1) great branding opportunities and/or (2) tools to increase the agent’s internet “presence”.
  • Buyers: with (1) the most comprehensive listings, (2) the cleanest search interface, and/or (3) connections to the best real estate professionals.
  • Sellers: with (1) reasonably priced listings and/or the (2) widest possible exposure.

In talking with Trulia, it became clear that these guys have every intention of serving the brokerage community very well. They’ve opted to sign agreements with many of the largest real estate brokerage firms in order to get a live version of their feeds. In return, they’ve agreed to limit the type of listings they show (read: No FSBOs) and they’ve agreed to send people to the listing brokers website for detailed information on a home that is for sale. From what I can gather, they definitely have won over the largest brokerage firms and seem to be serving them well.

For agents, they offer some tools like one that allow agents to put a Trulia search on their site and another tool that allows real estate sites to list the most recently added homes. While the tools are interesting, I do not see anything that would make most agents jump at the opportunity to work with Trulia, especially since their search results will send potential buyers to the listing broker’s website if they find a home they are interested in. We discussed how a few forward thinking brokers realize that they best serve their clients when they give them the maximum amount of information, I don’t see that logic prevailing in the industry any time soon.

Trulia logo
Exmpl: “Palo Alto”, “94114”, (but not Seattle yet!) 🙂

It is with buyers that I’m seeing the largest weaknesses in their business model. They have no plans to get a complete listing of “MLS” data (actually, it sounds like they may have completely ruled out the opportunity through contracts they’ve signed with large brokerages). In somewhere like NY where there is no “one” MLS, this strategy allows them to include listing data from a majority of the brokers and will quite possibly allow them to have the largest database of listed homes. However, in somewhere like Washington (and Oregon, California, and I think most of the country), this strategy means that they will never have the most complete database of homes (at least not under the current MLS system). Maybe I’m missing something, but I simply cannot see how this is going to win buyers over… Even an ugly search interface is better than a snazzy Trulia search if it includes a larger selection of homes that are on the market. In other words, if I’m interested in a home in Sunset Hill and there are three homes available in my price range, I want to see all three, not just the two that are represented by brokers who have signed agreements with Trulia.

INSERT_YAHOO_MAP

So, that addresses the issue of the most comprehensive listings, but how do they fair in “(2) the cleanest search interface”, and “(3) connections to the best real estate professionals”?

They definitely have the cleanest home search interface around and considering they put a lot of effort into making their searches lightning fast, they definitely serve the buyers best interests in this respect!

In terms of the issue of connecting the buyers with the best real estate professionals, I think they are missing the boat. Sure the listing broker’s website may have the most information available about a listing, but if their set-up encourages buyers to contact the listing agent (as oppose to a buyer’s agent), I do not think they are serving the buyer very well. To give an example, imagine if Google sent everyone who was looking for information on a iPod to Apple’s website (it is an Apple product after all). Sure Apple might be the best source of information on an iPod (assuming they share all the good and bad that they know), but is Apple’s website really the best place to research (let alone buy) an iPod? To bring this back to real estate buyers, the best way they could serve buyers would be if they could hook them up with an agents who had their best interests in mind (as oppose to an agent who has the best interest of the seller in mind).

One of the weaknesses in my Apple example is that Trulia includes a vast amount of awesome stats available directly on their website so that a buyer can find out information like comparable homes on the market without ever turning to the listing agent’s site for more detailed information on the listing itself. However, that doesn’t change the fact that they don’t plan to have the most comprehensive database of homes (at least not in areas with one functioning MLS) and they do not offer a way for a buyer to hook up with a good agent, but rather, they guide them to the listing agent.

For Sellers, they mentioned that they do not offer much. They are focused on working with brokerages, so the best they offers sellers is that if they use a real estate professional, they will indirectly benefit from the exposure on Trulia.

In reading over my text, I can’t help but notice just how negative I sound on Trulia. In reality, they are a great group of people and I’ve enjoyed EVERY interaction I’ve ever had with them. Along those lines, I decided to go back and remind myself of why I found Trulia so inspiring when they launched:

  • The search interface is as simple as entering a city name or a zip code! The UI is beautiful.
  • The filtering by other features like Price, Bedrooms, Bathrooms and Price is fast and very intuitive!
  • When clicking on more detail for a listing, you get the VERY useful information like the price per square foot, the days on the market, as well as details for other recently sold homes and similar homes in the area!
  • The color coded recently sold homes is awesome!
  • I really like that the the location of my search is stored in the url. This allows me to easily save and or send an area of interest. For example, here are the homes for sale in the part of Los Angeles where I grew up: http://www.trulia.com/CA/Eagle_Rock/90041/. (Also notice that it has neighborhood facts on this page.)
  • It has RSS feeds so that I can subscribe to my zip code and be updated each time a listing comes on the market.

All of these points are still valid and represent reasons that I still think Trulia is a fascinating and innovative company. My hope is that my comments in this post, especially when negative, will provide some food for thought to the people I’ve grown to really like over at Trulia. Their UI (user-interface) is a beautiful thing and blows away the UI of any other home search tool that I’ve seen. It is Trulia beautiful thing! 😉

Cancel Your Plans And Join us for a Trulia Chat Tonight!

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I just spoke with Sami Inkinen and Kelly Roark of Trulia. They are currently making the rounds in Seattle, and we all agreed that it would be fun to spend some time talking “real estate technology” while they are in town! (Why aren’t they in Seattle yet???)

However, knowing that I’m not the only person interested in learning a little more about Trulia, I’ve cajoled them into attending a “Trulia Chat” tonight at a local coffee shop.

So, here’s the plan… Sami and Kelly are going to be at Fremont Coffee (459 N. 36th St.) at 7pm for an hour of informal chat. Anyone interested in welcome to attend and there is no need to RSVP (although a comment if you plan to attend is welcome!).

INSERT_YAHOO_MAP

If you’re a real estate professional interested in learning about one (very interesting) team’s view of the future of real estate, then I recommend that you cancel your current plans for tonight and attend this free event.

Without a doubt these guys have one of the nicest home search interfaces around and when they finally do decide to launch in Seattle, they will be sure to drive a lot of traffic to the websites of a few local (and lucky) brokers.

RCG may have completed the real estate blogging trifecta, but which horse is going to win?

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About a week ago I noted that the Zillow Blog added Rain City Guide to its sidepanel and that I hadn’t found out about both the Redfin Blog or the HouseValues blog because they hadn’t spread any link love. As Rain City Guide hasn’t done much to deserve traffic from either site, I didn’t really expect my comments to make much impact, so I was pleasantly surprised to find that both blogs added Rain City Guide to their sidepanel in less than a few days, thus completing my Seattle-real-estate-search trifecta!

I start with this story because it highlights two timely points I want to make: (1) all real estate is local and (2) business blogs can be shockingly responsive in ways that simply is not possible with a standard business website.

And just as all real estate is local, I’m happy to say that all interesting real estate search technology appears to be local as well. I’ve seen some fun tools come out of New York and California (or should we say CaliYork), but I don’t think it can be argued that the future of real estate is being developed right here in Seattle.

So who is going to win the real estate technology race? Will it be:

I don’t pretend to have the answer, but I sure enjoying keeping score. 😉

The second (and only tangentially related) point I want to make is that business blogs are now the norm for tech companies. When done right these blogs are much more than just a place to put press releases and instead give some great insight into the corporate personality behind the company. Go ahead and read the first few blog entries from each of the big three real estate search sites:

(I’m waiting…)

Here’s is what I read… The Zillow people are a zany, tech bunch who really believe that they can crack the real estate nut through increased data crunching and processing power. The Redfin people have figured out a better business model and now only need to expand so that they can demonstrate efficiencies of scale. The HouseValues people have a laser-like focus on present marketing opportunities, so they really don’t spend much time thinking about the future. Had any of these three companies been blogging a year ago, I’m sure their blogs would read the same! And more interestingly, I’m fairly confident that if I read the “latest” three or four entries from those same three blogs one year from now, those will also read the same because the culture that created those blogs is the same culture that created those companies. There is a real honesty in blogging that is hard to mask. Both a company’s strengths and weaknesses show through in their blogs!

However not everyone sees blogging from this vantage point. Recently, Daniel Gross of Slate signaled the beginning of the end of the business blog, by focusing on all the problems with blogging. But by focusing on the financial aspects of blogging (which often don’t make sense), he misses out on the overwhelmingly positive marketing opportunities associated with adding a friendly face to an otherwise impersonal website. I’m so glad that these three big real estate tech companies out of the Seattle area have all begun blogging because it gives some great insight into the soul behind the companies.