google real estate - the real story?

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http://nearmapceo.blogspot.com/

Sunday, March 13, 2011

Google Real Estate - the real story?

A couple of months I expressed my surprise that Google announced they were withdrawing from Real Estate listings - the mighty Google running up the white flag on what appeared to be a nice fit with its core search capabilities and of course maps was definitely an eyebrow raiser for me at least. Perhaps for experts in the field it was less newsworthy as some of the weaknesses in the Google model may be more apparent to them. But I have an interest in maps, real estate, Google (you can't ignore them talk about hands in many pies) and of course generating revenue and so have been doing some digging. This article from The Atlantic offers some interesting insight albeit more geared toward foreclosure listings but the general gist is relevant - a couple of things stand out for me

1. It's a tough job keeping real estate listings up to date - if Google struggled with a gazillion engineers and resources it must be challenging aggregating content from sources over which you have little control in terms of accuracy, timely updates etc. Clearly no SLA's in this space then?!

2. It was surprising how user unfriendly the content was in the sense that Google buried it and you had to make an effort to find the listings.

My takeaway - offering maps, location services and user generated content is one thing - offering 3rd party content e.g. listings is another and so perhaps Google is better simply licensing maps to the Real Estate Industry and of course selling ad's.What does it mean for nearmap - I think integrating 3rd party content is something we will do amongst other things to offer increased value and a deeper user experience - clearly which 3rd party content and the quality of the data is key