Quick Vent About Trulia

Well said, Ryan! Most non-web-savvy agents and brokers will never get it unfortunately!!

It makes me so mad. Did you see where they are ranking for Alpharetta?

Wow, I just Googled Alpharetta real estate, and did not see Trulia, but there sure are some ugly sites ranking ahead of you. Is Alpharetta real estate a supper competitive search term for your area? I have to deal with them and homes and yahoo real estate. No other REALTORS ahead of me for one of my searches.

You don't see Trulia??? I'm showing them at number 4. Yes...I think "alpharetta real estate" is as competitive as "atlanta real estate". At least I can't crack it. I don't think I've ever ranked higher than number 4. But, hey! I'm #1 for the contest right now - at least on my DC Tomorrow I'll post another entry here about what else I'm doing for the contest....

For "Alpharetta Real Estate" I've got Yahoo #2, Trulia #9 and Homegain #10. I've finally started optimizing for the term, so hopefully I will be knocking one of them off very soon! Good job so far on the contest. I've got you at #1 position as well.

Opps...that was really me posting, not Louise.

Hi Ryan! Thank you for your feedback. I understand your frustration and want to help. Participating on Trulia is free. Our SEO helps drive traffic directly back to the agents listings and profile page.This is a good thing for the agent, brokerage not to mention their clients. The more traffic and exposure the better. You never know where someone will look to find a broker or listing. As far as the accuracy of the information is concerned, we work very hard to ensure all the data is up to date and accurate. If someone notices a discrepancy, we encourage them to contact us so we can investigate. There are times where listings have sold or the information has changed but are not yet reflected on Trulia. There are reasons for this and we do have remedies for to fix them. Agents have two ways to provide us their listing information: 1. Via an xml feed 2. Via a site crawl We don’t aim to compete with you for search and our data and comprehensiveness is getting much better every day. We are listening to any and all feedback in order to make the agents and consumers experience on Trulia a pleasant one. Everyone's Voice Counts. Regards,

Trulia most certainly isn't "hurting consumers". Trulia, and web sites like it, empower consumers. If the listing information on Trulia is slightly outdated, it's often because agents & brokers have not put Trulia in the loop. Many times these problems trace back to the antiquated MLS's themselves. If the real estate industry would modernize and open up their systems, web sites like Trulia would be capable of delivering extremely accurate & timely listing information. The problems you mention do exist with Trulia. But I see the problems largely stemming from the real estate industry itself, not Trulia. The growth of Trulia is driven completely by consumers. This is why I have hope that Trulia, Zillow, Yahoo, Google Base, etc. will help the industry be more open up & evolve.

Ryan Ward 2 Things: Mr./Ms. Trulia, I don't dislike what you do per se as your company is just trying to make a buck - who could blame you AND at least you guys have come up with some cool tools. The problem is that you do not and will not get accurate information. There's a guy down here that has one of you widgets on his site and I laugh at it because I can look at it and see that it is innacurate. This is giving a realtor a tool with bad info - I guess that's really his fault not yours. I just want people to understatnd that if they actually want accurate info, they need to go to a Realtor. Not you. Not zillow. Not some other non-real estate entity. Like it or not, you guys will eventually hurt more than help. Feel free to read through some of my previous blog posts for some answers as to why. Gabe, What you said is spoken like someone outside of the industry completely and this illustrates another example of why third party interloping companies are costing you the consumer more money. Trulia is not free, nor are the others. This has nothing to do with antiquated MLS's. LET ME BE CLEAR. Trulia and the like are completely incapable of providing accuratre and timely information regardless of what they try to tell you so learn it now, repeat it if you need to and then go tell everyone you know: If you want timely and accurate information, there is only one place to go and that is to a truly competent Realtor or broker who actually has access to all of the information. The growth of Trulia is not driven by consumers. The growth is driven by ignorant agents who think it's important to list their homes anywhere and everywhere which creates their relevance and by a lack of a good solution by Realtor.com.

Trulia is just ANOTHER SITE, just like Zillow is ANOTHER SITE...why do we need all these OTHER SITES when people can go directly to the source - a LOCAL REALTOR!

Hi Ryan! Rudy from Trulia here. Trulia completely supports brokers and agents and believes they are in fact the best individual source for local real estate information. All listings on Trulia point directly back to their website so consumers can get more information about the listing, agent and neighborhood. Agent profiles on Trulia are free and are Search engine optimized. By adding your website link, you are getting strong SEO link love from Trulia back to your site. Also, on Trulia Voices you can interact directly with buyers, sellers and other agents for free. Not too shabby. Can you please send me the link to the website with the "inaccurate" widget? We'd like to see what the issue is here. Again, with regards to accurate information, we do our best with the data we receive and are always looking to create a better user experience. Last week we had a meeting with Zillow and Yahoo! discussing the details of a new data standard that will help improve how listing information is syndicated. This is a good thing for all. http://www.truliablog.com/?p=294 Thanks again for your feedback Ryan. Rudy Everybody's Voice Counts! Rudolph D. Bachraty III Social Media Guru at Trulia 212.699.6455 office 646.248.7793 mobile rudy [at] trulia.com www.trulia.com www.truliablog.com

But Rudy, The point is, why does the consumer need Trulia, I have not heard that addressed yet. In my mind the consumer does not need Trulia at all, there are plenty of REALTORS in my area, me included who allow the public to search the local MLS (through IDX feed) from our own sites. The data about homes for sale on my site is way more accurate than the data on Trulia will ever be, yet I have to deal with Trulia taking up 2 spaces ahead of me for almost every relevant Google search. Perhaps somebody at Google will look at situations like this and decide what is relevant and accurate and what is less relevant, and much less accurate. Then again probably not.

I believe many of you are missing the point and seeing a threat where you should be seeing an opportunity. Here is a response I wrote to this blog post: http://www.goondocks.com/blog/08-02-16/response_to_a_quick_vent_about_trulia_.aspx

Gabe, I read your post, and I will respond to each one of your points when I have some time later. Each one, I believe, can be proven wrong and their is more at play here. The consumer loses in the end because of what will be increased costs to consumer for agents/brokers to list homes for sale. This isn't anything more than business 101. Get your foot in the door by offering some slick features (even if the content is poor). This is bad enough for consumers. Next, once you get links from a bunch of Realtors, you gain rank and authority and then you can force your hand for agetns to have to list homes for sale because of the exposure. There are soooo many Trulia types out there that frankly, it's not possible to use everyone of them or to list, delete and update on all of the sites. That's part of why the info is poor. Like I said, I will respond to all of your points in detail later...

I agree with you on that one Ryan, I have seen several of the listing presentations of my former office mates over at Keller Williams Summit, and in each case they have at least one if not more pages of their presentation listing all these sites they promise to upload the house listing to. It is crazy, if in my area our MLS has a public website where the public can go to and see every property listed in the MLS, Only thing they cannot see is the address, in addition to that, they could go to REALTOR.com (Yuck) which has a direct feed from the MLS as well, or they could go to my website, which the MLS Listings are updated every night with a direct feed from the local MLS. These agents who promise to upload these listings to places like Trulia do not have the time or the energy to go back and take those listings down once the homes sell, and so they just forget about them. Trulia is already costing us money, in that we the REALTORS now have to spend extra time and money trying to keep up or out rank places like Trulia. I predict that it will not be long and Trulia will have some sort of lead generation scheme going where they charge REALTORS to get real estate leads from Trulia. I am not trying to say that Trulia is totally bad, I just wish they would get out of our way.

Hi Paula - Thanks for your feedback. Glad to see your issue was resolved. Sorry that your email was not returned - weird. "I think these other sites can help us if they strive to work WITH us and FOR us." We're here for you. Please contact me directly anytime with any and all feedback you may have - rudy [at] trulia.com ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- James! - So why do consumers need Trulia? Good question. I hear they crave objective real estate information and want to find it easily. So we're doing our best to provide that. Buyers and sellers are posting questions on Trulia Voices and real estate agents are providing answers. It's a great two way conversation. If you're interested, please send us your corrected data so we can point interested buyers and sellers directly back to your site. If you need help with this, please drop me an email. The reason you are seeing agents post their clients exclusive listings in multiple places is because it's in their clients best interest to do so. The more exposure their clients listings get, the greater the chances are that someone will find them. And it's free to boot. Question: If someone offered to put your real estate profile, brokerage contact information and all your clients listings on a huge billboard on a highly trafficed highway or even in New York's Time Square, would you do it? ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hi Ryan! - Whether you join any type of social network, forum or blog community such as Facebook, LinkedIn, REW, Trulia Voices, Active Rain, My Space, Amazon, Yahoo!, etc.....they can all help promote you and your business which in turn can add value to your clients by gaining more exposure to the listings. Plus, the knowledge we all learn from each other in these online communities is invaluable. I'm a big believer in staying positive and having an open mind. At the end of the day, it's great to have choices. I respect your choices and opinions. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Hi Gabe! - Now that's a blog post.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Rudy

How about you remove the nofollows and start giving back some of the link juice everyone else is giving you - or wait...why don't you add nofollows to the widgets you so eagerly give out which help your relevance...Nevermind, I know the answer, you need to protect against spam! Riiiiiiiiiiight! By the way, are you insinuating that we can not provide objective real estate information as real estate professionals? It seems like the only people who can are those with the most information. Look. I get it. It's a big business and Trulia wants a share. I don't fault what you do. My beef is with agents and brokers who do not understand that they are giving away costly and valuable informationm for free.

By the way, I'll address Gabe's blog post tomorrow - all of his points are quite easily addressed. You guys can pass this stuff off to people who don't know what they are talking about and are not savvy on the internet, but, not here.

Hey Ryan: Great post. Unfortunately, as you mentioned, internet savvy agents no better, but they only make up a small percentage of all agents and companies like trulia, etc know this and exploit it. I am eager for trulia to respond to your comment about nofollow. If they truly are out for the benefit of the consumer and agents, why not remove nofollow? We both know there is a much bigger objective. With that said, I believe that consumers will get frustrated with these sites because of the outdated and mis-information and will search elsewhere. I believe consumers value "accurate" information and the only ones who can provide that are Realtors®.

Spelling correction: I meant to write internet savvy agents "know" better.

Trulia guy should have said we are not trying to compete with you openly for search. Just secretly.

Hi Ryan! Yes, we understand about the importance of sharing the link love but reducing spam is important too. We do share the link love by removing nofollow tags on links on an agents profile page on Trulia. So make sure to add a link to your site or blog there. Every time you add a comment on Voices, it links back to your profile. That's a good thing. Find out more about the use of nofollow here http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nofollow and here http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2005/01/preventing-comment-sp… . ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When I say objective, I mean we are not a direct party in interest to a real estate transaction. We gather information that can help consumers make informed decisions and point them to the agents that have the local knowledge they are looking for. Off course agents provide valuable objective local real estate information. It's what agents do. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Hi SVRPaul - Agents are free to use the widget or not. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Funny James ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rudy

Rudy, Why do you have nofollows on links back to agent websites from the individual listings and if it's such a good thing then why don't you add it to your widgets? Listen Rudy, I don't mind that Trulia exists, but, don't come around and act like your goal isn't to rank high on the backs of agents and then sell ad space back to the very same people who got you there. You can spin it however you want, but the reality is that you are in it to make money and the only way you can is if we give link love to you and you don't give it back. Get it? I do.

Hehe, I knew that would get your goat. No-follows as Trulia is doing is not about spam, it is about Trulia Page Rank, and lack there of on the REALTORs who contribute to Trulia. Stop hiding behind the spam excuse, unless you are calling the home listings that many REALTORs upload to Trulia are truly spam, in which case why not just tell Google that Trulia is a website just full of Spam??

Ryan from Trulia Quote -- "We don’t aim to compete with you for search" -- Cool! Then the live links pointing back to your site on your widgets that you generously provide to real estate agents to put on their home page are not needed.

Trulia rep, if spam is your only concern for adding no follows then there is no reason to not have live links on all listings. These are links that you are telling customers that they should trust, but telling the search engines you are so sure about them so don't count them. That is a little two faced isn't it?

Hi All! -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Let me take a step back. As a new member in the REW community, I'm glad to meet all of you. Thanks for the warm welcome Seriously, we value all your feedback. Many of you have really good questions which have sparked a healthy conversation. That's why we're here. To communicate. So if I can, I just want to clear some things up here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Regarding SEO - Yes, we certainly care about it. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Yes, we include no follows on listings. It's standard practice in the industry. Many sites - i.e. Realtor.com - don’t even point to the listing broker or agent unless you pay for it. On Trulia, our listings point directly to the listing broker or agent. The traffic we get is then pointed directly back to you, for free. We make money if you decide to buy premium placement on the site, but the bulk of our traffic - like Google - is free. No secrets here. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unlike most all other real estate sites, we really understand how important SEO is to agents, and therefore we don’t include no follows on agent profile pages. Some savvy agents on Trulia Voices - our real estate Q&A community - have taken advantage of this, like Roberta Murphy. Check her out. http://www.trulia.com/voices/profile/Real_Estate_Pro-San_Diego_County-54755/ ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The reason we put no follows on Trulia Voices answers is to prevent spam. We prefer not having Viagra links not show up all over our site. Hopefully you understand. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thanks for lending me your ear. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Rudy from Trulia

You have managed to drop in 4 links now to the site this blog post was intended to inform agents not to link to. Interesting don't you think?

Drew, how about just taking our comments to trulia managment ask them when they are going to address the very valid points that have been raised in this blog and all the comments attached to it, and then come back and say by such date the NoFollows will be removed, or come back and say, Trulia does not intend to address the very valid points. Of course if the answer is the later is will set-off another round of campaigning against Trulia. i guess I should google trulia now and see if this post shows up.

They're on page 2 in Google for both terms here in Atlanta.

Nice Morgan changed the links in comments to nofollows and the Trulia rep stopped replying, guess we know what his real purpose was.

Here is another article about Trulias webranking tactics: http://www (dot) inman (dot) com/news/2008/05/5/trulias-web-ranking-strategies-catch-heat

I'm late  to this post and wanted to see what all the commotion was so I did a search to see what Trulia is up to.  What's weird, is I did the search for 'atlanta real estate' and alpharetta real estate' and Trulia didn't come up at all!

"atlanta real estate" they are number 8 on my DC, alpharetta real estate, #10...and creeping up...

Yep - they have creeped up to #2 for Fort Lauderdale Real Estate, but I still have the #1 spot (for now).

for morristown NJ real estate we have been able to knock them down to #8 from #2 a few months ago.  Interestingly homegain has been knocked off the first page all together.

The interesting thing to me as of late is that Drew and the other surrogates are no longer rushing out to defend trulia.  I think they have come to the decision that it hurts them to comment, that there is nothing they can say that will convince us that the truth is not the truth.

I agree, it's frustrating. I am always having clients inquire about why those other sites have homes that my site does not show....then I have to demonstrate (by pulling up each one they find) how that home has been sold for weeks or even months.

Wow, I'm impressed with the speed they replied. I loaded one of my properties, and they never gave me a sign on. After many emails requesting it (because they had an interior showing as the main pic I wanted fixed) I gave up. It was eventually fixed, but only because another vendor sent a feed and did an override on mine (I guess anyway...). It was hard to "keep them in the loop" when no one would respond to my emails. I cant imagine I was the only one, and I do believe this contributes to the inaccuracies. Agents need to have access to keep the info up to date and modify changes. Maybe blogs work better than emails??

In an attempt to stay neutral (is that possible??) I do understand the point of other search options. Consumers always want options and choices...stores, restaurants, Internet providers, and yes Real Estate Agents. Although many times local agent websites will provide the most accurate information...when someone from another State is looking for real estate, they will not know us as an authority for our area...no matter how great our site is. We are just another face with information they do not know to be good or not. Consumers always want to find the information at another place, shop around the information (corroborate, confirm, look for "deals"). Truila and Realtor.com allows us to become apart of a recognizable name, and thereby does allow us even more credibility. Even though their information may not be as accurate as we would like, it is a platform of a "neutral position" (in a consumers mind). Consumers are driven to names they recognise-it will not matter if that name provides the best information. As agents, true, we may not "need" these other venues...or "other sites" however, why do so many agents have more than one site?? I think these other sites can help us if they strive to work WITH us and FOR us.

Who is Drew?  Do you mean Rudy from Trulia? Anyway, there was recently discussion about Trulia's use of "nofollow" tags on the Trulia blog: http://www.truliablog.com/?p=388 On this issue, I believe Trulia is out of line.  Regarding Trulia displacing your web sites in the search engines, I have no problem with this.  Trulia continues to infuse much needed innovation into the real estate search space.  In most cases Trulia's web site offers a MUCH better experience than local broker and agent web sites. I understand why it isn't in your interest to be displaced; but Trulia's success demonstrates that consumers want more choice, empowerment and innovation. Yeah Trulia! Gabe Sumner http://www.goondocks.com/

goondocks...is it of no consquence to you that they lack information that is readily available elsewhere? Why on earth would you think that a site with partial information, some of which is outdated and some of which you have to sign up for on other 3rd party sites should be or could be considered relevant or an authority? In my personal opinion, this is shortsighted in that you are placing innovation above information. Not to mention NOT a good idea from a consumer point of view.

Ryan, you really don't get it, do you? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Anyone can use paint, right?  It's everywhere.  It's easy.  Why on earth would someone spend a fortune paying a painter?  Why do we even need painters?  Except in the hands of de Vinci ordinary paint becomes something extra-ordinary.  Skillful presentation has value! ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Trulia offers a user experience different and superior than any real estate web site I have come in contact with.  As a real estate web programmer I stand in awe of their accomplishments.  Their focus, strategy and execution is to be admired.  Rather than resent their success, I think it far more valuable to ask myself "what am I doing wrong?" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is what you should be asking yourself.  Why are users compelled to use Trulia?  Trulia didn't exist only a few years ago and yet they now rank in the top 10 of real estate web sites.  This should give the entire industry pause.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Responses like yours remind me just how ego driven this industry often is.  It also reminds me why upstarts like Trulia are making headway. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gabe Sumner - http://www.goondocks.com/

For anyone who missed these, they might be off interest to you: http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=2983 http://www.bloodhoundrealty.com/BloodhoundBlog/?p=3062 Take your time, read through the comments.  

Goondocks, Perhaps we should just agree to disagree - if trulia wants in so bad, get a bunch of brokers and get access to the info. If you can't see that the information is the most impoortant thing then maybe we can't have a communication. "Skillful presentation has value!" - this is silly. Sorry. It does NOT have vaue when what people are seeking is information and that information is inadequate. That was a joke, right? I just can't respond to the rest of it. You should read the links above before you get to far into it.

I would just add that Trulia didn't pop up in the ranks because they offer a better value, they popped up in the ranks because agents were duped into giving them live links while Trulia nofollows everything back.   Let's call it what it is.  Once agents wise up and remove the widgets, we shall see where Trulia ranks.

Goondocks, I meant to say Rudy earlier.  I find Trulia's numbers of visitors to be kind of suspect.  I know they have bad data, and all that, but I find it funny that I had a listing up on it which went multiple offers, even garnered 5 REATLOR.com contacts, (REALTOR.com contacts are rare for me anyway) and i forgot to go in and change things on Trulia for an extra 10 days after the home went under contract, and still not one consumer contact from that listing.  Tells me that consumers do not use trulia that much.  I think Trulia needs the REALTORS much more than the REALTORS need Trulia.

Gabe- I am curious what YOUR angle is in this. Where is your financial interest? Just for transparency's sake, i'd like to know.

Gabe - I guess  "what am I doing wrong?" is providing accurate information about real estate in my area! But, according to you all the customer wants it some neat little widgets. I say your not even close to right. Customers come to real estate websites to look at properties for sale, all of them, and trulia doesn't have them. What am I missing?

Hi Eric, I will answer your question; I have worked as a web programmer in the real estate industry for 5 years.  I have long experienced the tension between what I know to be possible (from a technology perspective), what I know to be useful (from a consumer perspective) and what the real industry is willing to let go of. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- My personal loyalty, first & foremost, is to my trade.  I love the open nature, it capacity for innovation and its potential to empower consumers.  One by one the Internet is changing the landscape of entire industries (iTunes, Napster, YouTube, Amazon, eBay, etc). ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I can be a web programmer in hundreds of industries.  However, I have struggled very hard to do good "web site stuff" in the real estate industry.  Furthermore, I believe I have a good idea of where all of this is going.  I am saddened that it is largely "non-brokers" who appear to be leading the way.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It isn't hard to figure this out though.  You just sit down and ponder things from the consumer perspective.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As a home buyer (I just went through this process not long ago) I want to be empowered to do my own property searches.  I want to be able to use the web site of my choice.  I want hundreds of companies to compete in this space; all struggling to create the best user experience. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- You might say "So?  People can use my web site.  It has the IDX inventory and everything is up to date!  What more do you need?". ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Listen carefully; your web site sucks and so does the IDX.  Ryan, I looked at your web site.  In the real estate space your web site is actually better than most.  But it is still bad.  At the very least, I would prefer to not look at your name on every page.  I also detest being greeted with a "web form" each time I click on a listing.  Regardless of whether the listing information for your small region is more accurate or not is insignificant.  From a purely consumer perspective, Trulia offers a better interface for interacting with the inventory.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Want to debate this?  If so, I will invite a ton of non-Realtors to this discussion.  I will do my best to apply a level of scrutiny to your web site that only Trulia could appreciate.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- As a home seller, I want my home to be featured everywhere!!  Each additional page view is a potential sale.  Having my listing be buried only on small regional "IDX approved" web sites does not help me.  P.S.  quit calling "my house" "your listing".  Are you here to promote yourself and your web site or my house? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I know I'm fast becoming the most unpopular person on this web site, but this is how I see all of this. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gabe Sumner - http://www.goondocks.com/

Matt, is the "thinklouise.com" web site your web site? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Countless usability studies have shown users detest being forced to give information they are not ready to give.  Why do require me to complete a form to view property details?  Do you run any analytics on your web site?  What percentage of your visitors make it past this form?  Do you find "forced leads" to be quality leads? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It's really easy to talk about the quality of listing information and web sites in an anonymous setting.  However, if I start comparing Trulia with your web sites (or my web site) the true tale starts to be told.  Our focus is on promoting ourselves and on getting leads.  Trulia's focus is on creating a compelling user experience.  We are being beaten because our priorities are in the wrong place. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Can anyone offer a justfication for why forcing someone to complete a form is "helpful"? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gabe Sumner - http://www.goondocks.com/ 

Goondocks - it appears you are either not forthcoming of your true intentions or you have a narcisstic view about everything.  This blog was about Trulia and agents being duped into helping them with their deceptive seo, not a license for you to trash websites and bloviate about what you want.  Just because you want something doesn't mean you are entitled to it.  If you want to search listings on your own, etc - then do it on your own.  Drive the neighborhoods, look at the classifieds and go to the sites of your choice including trulia.  If you want to see realtor listed homes from my site, (or any agent's site)  than it is like coming into my home.  You respect my home's rules. 

Sure. It's called better quality. Trulia, thinklouise, ryanwardrealestate...these are all businesses. I don't want to speak for Matt, but, I tested myself with roughly 700 - 800 hundred thousand pageviews to my website without registration vs. the same number after requiring registration. These numbers are not exaggerated, if anything, my testing used more pageviews. In my case, there is no comparison. Registration provides better quality visitors who turn in to clients more frequently than without registration. It's not a willy nilly comparison with that much traffic either. I would submit to you that trulia has some very innovative features no doubt. I would also say that the ads on their site take away from the user experience. I also think that their quick search on the left side leaves much to be desired. In my opinion, their search is far too difficult for the average ocnsumer to get. There is way too much information on the page. Every website is a work in progress; mine, Matt's, trulia's....there is always room to improve. For the record als - there is nothing overwhelmingly special about trulia's technology. It's the innovation that is to be admired. Any good web programmer can do what trulia has done.

Thanks John

Hi Gabe,   We are not here to please everyone, we don't have too.  We only need to please a small percentage of the people shopping online for a home.  Though trulia may be more pleasing to the eye, many people quickly find out that they are waisting their time using that site because not much gets updated once it sells.  I dare say that 50% of the homes on Trulia at any given time are SOLD.  On the flip side of that 99.999% of the homes on jboyerhomes.com are actively for sale, and the rest may just have gone under contract and will be updated within 24 hours. We would very much welcome all your non real estate friends to come and visit us here and at our websites and offer up their opinions and advice.  Well at least I would welcome it anyway.   Jim

> Any good web programmer can do what trulia has done. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Are you kidding me?  Any good web programmer will tell you this isn't true.  I consider myself a good web programmer.  If you look at a 10 scale.  The 10 spot being occupied by the engineers at Google.  I'm probably a 7 or an 8.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Please note, that still makes me pretty damn good.  But I fully understand that in some areas I am dwarfed by others.  In some areas, I have a lot to learn.  In some areas, I simply suck. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Trulia is maintaining a separate data feed for hundreds of brokers.  Trulia has technology that will scrape (with broker consent) listing information directly from the web site.  Trulia has a lot of AJAX technology woven into their web site.  Despite the volume of data processing, the Trulia web site performs okay.  Trulia fetches comparable listings automatically.  Trulia tracks average listing prices.  Trulia supplies community information for listings.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I invite you to get a quote on what it would cost to create Trulia.  1 year(s)+ of work, 5 programmers, 2 interface designers, 2 DBA's, a project manager, 10 web servers, a load balancer, 2 caching servers, 5 database servers, etc, etc.  Very few web programmers know how to assemble all of this in an effective way.  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- I have never worked on a project of this level.  I would love the opportunity and I study as much as I can from the outside, but until you've done it...you have no idea.  Any web programmer who tells you creating Trulia is "no big deal" is a fraud. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gabe Sumner - http://www.goondocks.com/

I think you about summed it up for me there Gabe - sounds to me that if you were given the resources, you could do it. My point isn't that I can, it is that they are innovative with the use of technology that exists all over the web already. Give me a break. Please!

> "You respect my home's rules. " ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- *sigh*  You mean your customer's home?  ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- > "Just because you want something doesn't mean you are entitled to it. " ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Isn't this what fuels the consumer industry?  Delivering products, services and solutions consumers desire? ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Also, I only referred to other web sites because others were suggesting their personal web sites negated the need for Trulia.  I was trying to illustrate what Trulia offers that these agent web sites do not.  Anyway, I have failed (again) to impress upon others the value Trulia brings to consumers.  I'm done. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gabe Sumner - http://www.goondocks.com/

Ryan, I wrote that he wasn't forthcoming - I believe his posts are for the attention of Rudy and Trulia, "I'm probably a 7 or an 8 (out of 10 - programmer)".  "I have never worked on a project of this level.  I would love the opportunity...", etc.  Very clever.  Allow me to be more forthright. Rudy, any job openings?

Hi Gabe, I know the person who headed up the QA effort when bestbuy.com was redeveloped a few years ago, and I can assure you the development team was much much larger than what you say for Trulia, even the QA team was considerably larger and that was a 24 month project.  Now I would not compare BB.com to trulia because I know as of 3 years ago bb.com was doing as much business as BB's 30 largest stores combined.  I am sure that figure is much higher now but I don't know anyone who works there anymore.___________________________________ In my opinion there really is not any need for Trulia, they are really not providing any unique added value that is not being provided else where. ________________________________ I also believe that just like a few other companies, Trulia's main goal is to force their way between the REALTORS and the consumers so that for now they can scrape as much ad revenue as possible, and later when they fully dominate, sell leads to which ever REALTOR will pay for them.  That does not ad any value to the consumer, it ads cost to the consumer.

John, you can believe what you want.  It will be unfortunate if everything I've said gets dismissed by saying "the dude just wants a job".  I originally posted about this in Jan.  For a year prior to me posting I've had these conversations with others. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- This is an area where I have a heartfelt passionate opinion.  Often having this opinion has been to my detriment (not gain).  But that doesn't really matter.  I try very hard to follow my gut & heart.  The chips can then fall where they will.  --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- James, I still disagree with you.  I think Trulia no more concerning than Google.  It's just another way customers can find you and your customer's listing.  I value your clear-headed responses though.  As Ryan said earlier, we will have to agree to disagree.  Consumers & the market will ultimately sort this issue out.  In 5 years we will see who is right.  Take care! --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Gabe Sumner - http://www.goondocks.com/