Zillow goes to the Presses
It’s no secret newspapers are dying. Most are struggling to transition to a new digital environment. And let’s face it. Most newspaper web sites are pretty awful. Many are stuck in legacy platforms, saddled with expenses and without the resources necessary to bring their sites up to 2.0 snuff. (Sound familiar brokers?)
And since craigslist has already gutted their real estate advertising revenue, it seems many papers seem to be abandoning the space altogether. Leaving it as someone else’s problem.
Zillow.com announced today its plans to launch co-branded real estate Web sites with 180 newspapers across the US.
The Tampa Tribune and 100 other newspapers published by Community Newspaper Holdings, Inc. are amongst the first to take up the Zillow brand. For example, Homeseeker on TBO.com now just redirects all property searches to a cobranded Zillow page.
This is great news for Zillow who get all the SEO benefit of those inbound links, fantastic name brand awareness in each of these communities they go live in and tons more traffic to prop up their advertising CPMs.
And presumably, the newspapers get a cut on any ads sold in their Zillow space.
Of course, all of this isn’t particularly revolutionary, it builds on Trulia’s existing Publisher Platform and the granddaddy in the space, Classified Ventures’ Homefinder.
But it’s interesting to see the degree to which the newspapers don’t seem to care about monetizing real estate traffic on the ‘net. I’m not sure if its just not profitable (no advertisers) or they don’t have the capacity (or capability) to monetize it successfully and so are just willing to hand it off whole to a third party.
In any case, it seems a little short sighted.
A couple years ago I spoke to a group of newspaper advertising executives about what to do to save their real estate sections. I suggested that they look beyond banners and classifieds and build out a whole platform to support real estate agents and brokers taking their marketing messages to the web; a listing syndication engine, a blogging solution, an advertising platform, a video hosting tool.
The vision? Rather than simply preying on advertising dollars from the industry – build out the tools that the industry so desperately needs. Become a trusted service provider and build a bridge between the professionals and the community the paper serves. One that ultimately in fact could be leveraged by all verticals.
In today’s climate, that may be too ambitious, and too late. And it all hinges on whether the local newspaper brands are still even relevant in a few years. I’m not even sure about that anymore.
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Marty Lachance (Utopria) | Apr 2, 2009 | Reply
There are many companies out there that are looking for way to monetize real estate traffic, yes newspapers didn’t quite get it and it likely is too late for many of them.
What we find so interesting is that few Realtors understand the value in this traffic. Realtors are not able to place ads on their website and provide enough traffic to adequately monetize their listings, this is understandable.
But if they are able to incorporate local partners (Real Estate supporting service companies), provide these partners with a captive audience, and the ability to host their partner’s multimedia advertisements…now this is something that can generate alternate sources of income.
This is the model we’ve developed at Utopria. Make the listing the central focus of the Realtor’s marketing campaign and provide the foundation for business partners to create compelling ads. To start monetizing listings, the Realtor simply invites their own partners to participate alongside their listing portal.
It’s an interesting concept that is already delivering benefits to many in the industry.
We think we’ll be seeing more of this business model – especially as Realtors actively look for ways to generate alternate sources of revenue.
Brit Legend | Apr 2, 2009 | Reply
People like you and me who do sooo much on the net would probably not even think of opening a newspaper to look for a house. But I’m still surprised that some people do just that here in NZ. And I’m not talking about big ads with great photos, I’m referring to tiny little ads with no photo, just a phone number, price and maybe a website reference in one of the national or local newspaper.
I’m convinced though that more and more people will swap the papers for the net overtime making print advertising eventually redundant.
Christian | Apr 3, 2009 | Reply
Man, Zillow just keeps on growing. In our market, the service Zillow provides is incomplete and highly inaccurate, almost to the point of being damaging to people’s perception of our market. They must be doing a better job in other locations
Travis - Short Sale Center | Apr 6, 2009 | Reply
Too many newspapers are still run by old mentality which just isn’t going to cut it in today’s market place. I think we will see more newspapers go strictly to an online model very soon.
Charlotte Web Design | Apr 9, 2009 | Reply
Traditional media folks are to much set in their ways IMO. As its been demonstrated over and over with the failing newspapers, they’re simply to slow to adapt and change.
Marty Lachance (Utopria) | Apr 13, 2009 | Reply
It’s not so much that they are afraid to adapt and change, it’s more about how they got started in the online world of news and content.
They pay for stories/content, yet they are unable to earn revenue or gain loyalty to a paid online subscription model.
What’s worse is much of the content they pay for is available for free in many other online outlets.
Add to this – consumer habits have changed significantly in the past few years. They are in a pickle that’s for sure.