Redfin, Trulia – I don’t get it.
I spend as much time as anyone in the web 2.0 world studying the new business models and the latest ajax apps that have made their way into the online real estate space. Since the sites I am talking about are not direct competitors (not yet anyway), I thought I could go ahead and talk about what I think they are doing wrong.
As most people who follow this sector know, Redfin closed an $8M round of venture capital financing a little while back. When I first heard about it, I was very excited…LakePlace.com’s alexa numbers were better than theirs (at the time – not anymore) and they were bringing a lot of attention to our sector. This is good for everyone in the online real estate business. I was also excited to see that they announced the launch of their redesigned website. What I wasn’t excited about – was that they continued to use their map mash-up as the main search and navigation function of their website.Â
Trulia, who has also raised around $8M, relies heavily on their google map mashup as the main way to navigate their website as well. They have added a link allowing you to make the map disappear – but not until the map has already bogged down the user experience.
Why Map Mash ups do not work
I think that maps play a very important role in the world of online real estate. And I know that it is really easy to get excited about new technologies (i.e. flash websites back in the day) – but in most cases, there are simply too many listing markers on these map mashup sites to make them a relevant and useful search tool. If you are looking at a map of a small area with 50+ property markers, most of them completely overlapping each other, what’s the point? How does this enhance user experience? How does this make finding a home easier? I don’t think it does.
I also need to comment on the slow load times caused by these maps and geocode calls. Alexa calls Redfin’s loading time “average†– with an average load time of 2.2 seconds. Trulia’s loading time is called “very slow†– with an average load time of 4.8 seconds. I can tell you that at LakePlace.com, we are working very hard to speed up our “fast†load time of 1.3 seconds – it is one of our main concerns. I think fast is better than slow – and there is no such thing as fast enough. I do not think map mash-ups, at least the way they have been implemented thus far, make real estate websites or real estate search better.
For the record, I think that Redfin and Trulia are very exciting companies with disruptive and promising business models. Redfin is working hard to change the agent/broker commission model and Trulia is working hard to crack the Multiple Listing Service – both seem to be doing well – I just don’t like the maps.
Tags:
redfin, trulia, web 2.0, ajax, real estate, mashups
