Zillow Advice: Innovation deflation

Zillow Advice launched this morning. And I’m feeling apocalyptic.

Seriously: This release, while nicely executed, says a lot about the state of online real estate innovation.

In short, despite a few recent gems, their ain’t much of it right now.

It’s a straightforward, and long-awaited, parity move. One that was probably necessary. Trulia Voices has been growing uncontested for a while now.

But do we really need another online real estate “community” where hungry and over-eager real estate professionals lunge at consumer questions that so much as graze their area of expertise?

Do more page views and more registrations, however they may be sliced and diced, really help the fundamental challenges at the heart of Zillow’s business model?

What new value is created here?

Sorry. Enough with the buzz kill. I’ll crawl back under my bridge now.

— Brian Boero