So the question becomes, who is going to be the first to put a bunch of local players together to create a larger network? I hope that our brokerage, Real Connections, inc. is the answer to this. We are in version 4.0 of our software which will release in Beta in 2 weeks. After we do our full launch, the idea is to unify brokerages around the nation to form a site that offers local knowledge.

… OK, 30 seconds was enough. I saw the AOL logo and into my head popped early 1990’s visions of Bust A Move and Buster Douglas. Memory bliss, yet all symbols of the past. Now I’m running to YouTube to find Young MC’s video. This thread has made my morning very nonproductive.

We can agree to disagree on the vertical vs. portal approach – but I’m hedging my bets on who can best reach the offline world, where most people that I talk to on the street, in the bar, have never even heard of Zillow or Trulia. Most of them have heard of AOL or Yahoo! however. I would suspect there are far more of them then there are of us.

IMHO – Compete’s graph is representative of that.

You’re right – they see the success that Zillow has had and are stirring to life. This is a different idea – real estate data as content. A true media model. This is a business these guys know well.

Couple that with the real estate ad dollars fleeing print for online and they’re moving into action.

I bet we’re going to see some pretty major moves in the next few months as these guys rumble to life.

Consider that the portal traffic “funneled” comes at both an opportunity cost and a development cost to the portal … not unlike the marketing costs that vertical web sites have to bear. So, a vertical site’s challenge is no greater than a portal’s, only different. The portal vs. vertical debate is as old as the web itself and has no clear winner. In the real estate space, my personal bet is on the innovation that comes with a vertical focus.

McClatchy and Tribune are a part of Homescape, a division of Classified Ventures, (the other players are Belo,The Washington Post and Gannett) who like AOL have been pursuing the online real estate space for years. Homescape has announced new strategies to partner with Brokers to get listing data, so in a way they will be playing catch up when it comes to the numbers game. Newspaper sites have tried any number of different ways to capitalize on what you refer to as a funnel effect. By and large, it has yet to prove effective in most major markets. Thus the redirected effort on Homescape’s part when it comes to listing content.

As far as AOL is concerned, they see the tremendous consumer success that Zillow has been able to capture and they are redirecting their partnerships to capitalize on it in any way they can. Starting over isn’t easy, even if you’re AOL. Scrapping the real estate section of their portal and rebuilding should tell you what level of success, or lack thereof, that they have had over the years and In my opinion they will have to work about as hard as anyone else to compete with the likes of Trulia and Zillow. The Halo effect just isn’t as strong as you might think. There are still plenty of other partnership opportunities to be had as well.

Jayson,
I am scratching my head at your comment. It went from SEO is important to traditional advertising is here to stay for years to come. So that begs the question…….. huh????

My point really though was that the portals (and newspapers) can leverage existing traffic and the network effect and funnel it into their real estate verticals. Standalone destinations like Trulia and Zillow face a much greater challenge building a unique destination. Not a new issue – but relevant, as the thrust of this post was that I think more and more mainstream media outlets like AOL will be pursuing real estate plays very quickly.