Yourstreet is Now Empty
Wow. That was quick.
Zillow makes one mention of getting into the neighborhood conversation game (see Teething Problems as Zillow Bears its Fangs) and the other players start fleeing…
Yourstreet, the neighborhood community site (see Real Estate Geeks Unite at YourStreet.com) just announced it has bailed out of the real estate space.
Are they running from Zillow or is it a sign that a sour market has dampened enthusiasm for real estate conversations?
An email from the founders this morning stated:
While we were happy with the initial version of the site, we thought we could do better – a lot better. Over the last few months we’ve learned that our users want to talk about all things local – not just real estate. We’ve also learned that keeping up with news about your neighborhood is really important.
So I’m excited to announce that we are overhauling YourStreet to focus on transforming the way you experience local news and information. While I can’t get into too many details yet, I can say that the new YourStreet will bring you closer to the news that really matters to you. YourStreet will be an entirely new way of exploring and learning about your street, your neighborhood and the world around you.
The site has been pulled down and is promising a relaunch in the Fall. But is this the first of the user-gen sites that’s heading for a Real Estate 2.0 Deadpool?
Reading between the lines it looks like they are refocusing around the Outside.In or Topix.com model; aggregating local news rather than trying to generate new content.
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Kyle Else | Jul 10, 2007 | Reply
Yup, wow that was fast – goodbye “vibrant community of homeowners, buyers and renters sharing inside knowledge about their local neighborhoods….” Hello keeping up with news about your area(s) of interest. Great info – thanks Joel.
James Nicholson | Jul 10, 2007 | Reply
As the founder of YourStreet I can shed a bit more light on our decision to change course.
First off, yup, it was fast. One of the advantages of a nimble start-up is being able to listen to your users and turn on a dime. Instead of slogging it out for months at a time we decided to respond quickly to what the market is telling us.
Our decision to broaden our focus to local news and information had nothing to do with “running from Zillow”. What we did find was a lack of enthusiasm for conversations around real estate when those conversations are cut off from a broader local context. We found that people want to talk about everything going on around them and that the real estate specific nature of the site turned some people off.
But our new direction really came about because everyone on the team felt that YourStreet could do a lot more and be a lot better. The new version of YourStreet will launch in the fall and I think you’ll see that changing direction allowed us to do something really unique and powerful. So stay tuned!
Marc Davison | Jul 10, 2007 | Reply
The problem surrounding user gen sites for real estate is incentive for users to generate content with the same velocity as they do on Twitter.
While we live in communities, we do not relate to them in the same way we do ourselves. We are a “whats’ in it for us” society so what’s in it for us to post about our neighborhood.
If it’s a great one, we don’t want others moving in. If it’s not…well why publicize it.
My question is, where were the Realtors? Why weren’t they contributing. Why weren’t they flocking to this like bees to honey.
Had they, who knows what kind of great lead gen tool that would be.
But they didn’t.
Goodbye another cool idea.
For now.
TitleRep | Jul 10, 2007 | Reply
I like the idea behind these sites… Neighborhoodcrossing.com looks good too, but Joel and I are the only members in the whole Portland area. I just don’t think there’s a real need around here.
I guess they’re still waiting for me to put out the 5 door hangers I got in the mail from them advertising their site…
Agent Scoreboard | Jul 10, 2007 | Reply
Marc… your right…
It doesn’t suprise me a bit that that folded. Just like backfences, they people really don’t care about talking about their street or grocery store, their is no incentive to do that. People belong to communities online that they would in real life (well not always) but it just makes it easier to share common interests. My streets is where I live, I don’t know that I’m interested in it other than if the local meth lab blows up.
Realtors didn’t participate because there aren’t enough of them out there online. Most have website, but they may log on once, twice a day. Most aren’t online in any significant way
Incredible Agent | Jul 16, 2007 | Reply
The whole concept of having 1 website dedicated to neighborhood conversations doesn’t make a whole lot of sense. It does make sense in the Zillow/Trulia Voices model though. Q and A’s are a great way to build community on a site that has more to offer to the consumer. You also need traffic to your site in order to generate the conversations. If you don’t have that, you might as well move on.