Comments on: After the Great Recession: What Will The Internet Look Like?

By: At First, Everything | Redfin Corporate Blog

At First, Everything | Redfin Corporate Blog — Mon, 14 Jun 2010 05:54:19 +0000

[...] You’ve argued that digital content such as music and books should be free, and that the most interesting technology services are free. Since the success of Zynga, iTunes, Groupon, Gilt — and the bankruptcy in 2009 of many free online services, not to mention many bands and authors — has the world shifted away from this model? Does free only work if you shoot the moon, and reach Yahoo’s scale? And I’ll be honest here, the answer I’m looking for is “Kelman, you were right all along.” [...]

By: A Media Company Mating with an E-Commerce Company | Redfin Corporate Blog

A Media Company Mating with an E-Commerce Company | Redfin Corporate Blog — Sun, 14 Mar 2010 15:33:59 +0000

[...] QUESTION! This is a topic we’ve discussed before, predicting last March that e-commerce would enjoy a new vogue, and publishing in 2007 our manifesto that e-commerce still had the most potential to fulfill the [...]

By: The Only Things You Probably Don’t Know About Michael Arrington | Redfin Corporate Blog

Mon, 13 Jul 2009 22:08:15 +0000

[...] official sanctioning of music theft is adolescent and even immoral. I’ve argued that his enthusiasm for free software services has led an entire generation of entrepreneurs over a cliff. I’ve chastised him for [...]

By: jt

jt — Fri, 03 Jul 2009 00:23:29 +0000

Redfin is the scientology of real estate!

By: Greg Paskill

Greg Paskill — Sun, 22 Mar 2009 17:45:43 +0000

I loved the above observation of you get what you pay for, as a counter-argument to “the best things in life are free.”

Some of my other favorite pairings include:
1A – 2 heads are better than 1.
1B – If you want something right, do it yourself.

2A – Don’t judge a book by its cover.
2B – Image is everything.

By: Redfin Blog - After The Great Recession - Real Estate « Hamptons Real Estate Blog

Tue, 17 Mar 2009 18:01:41 +0000

[...] Part 1 – After…What Will the Internet Look Like? [...]

By: After the Great Recession: The End of Funny Business | Redfin Corporate Blog

Mon, 16 Mar 2009 16:54:46 +0000

[...] a lot lately about how the world will look when the recession is over. Last Tuesday, we said that the Internet will shift toward applications that consumers will pay for rather than media content. Yesterday, we looked at startup economics, [...]

By: nobody

nobody — Fri, 13 Mar 2009 16:53:04 +0000

“For most ad-driven websites, the goal isn’t necessarily to engage an audience in the completion of any particular task so much as to redirect it toward a purchase on an advertiser’s site.”

Great observation. So why are you a fan of BuddyTV then? I poked around the site a bit, and they fit your description exactly.

By: Glenn Kelman

Glenn Kelman — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 15:26:20 +0000

Good bust David, when I wrote that I had in mind other ad-driven real estate sites as you can well imagine, but I have clarified the post to indicate that there are exceptions when it comes to photos. But if we are trying to get it right, I don’t think it’s accurate either to say that you display three times the photos for most or even many listings. Overwhelmingly we seem to display the same number of photos.

Would you agree that it’s generally fair to say that Redfin and some of your other broker partners display more information about the listing than you do, and that the main reason for this is that your business model is designed to complement the sites of those broker-partners? For example, the price history and a full set of amenities is displayed on Redfin’s site and I assume you don’t display that out of respect for the brokers?

Regarding whether I imagine “a world without advertising” I don’t think I am that dull! I must not have written the post clearly but the post does conclude by saying: “This is not to say that you can’t build beautiful ad-driven sites, or that you can’t make money from those sites. The web is by far the world’s most powerful advertising medium.” I fully expect ad dollars to shift to the Web, and for the ad-driven model to continue growing. I just hope that the downturn creates room for other models.

And regarding Facebook as a utility, in introducing Facebook into the essay, I began by quoting Facebook’s description of itself as a social utility, which to me is a form of an application. And generally, I argue that Facebook should charge like a utility. So I think we agree there, too.

I am embarrassed to say though that I don’t know what PSE means. What does it stand for?

By: David G from Zillow.com

David G from Zillow.com — Thu, 12 Mar 2009 14:50:58 +0000

Hey Glenn,

Can you please correct your comment about limiting photo’s? Zillow.com displays more than 3X the number of photo’s Redfin does and our site is ad supported. Thanks!

Just FYI; the ad game is also evolving to meet the changing marketplace. You seem to imagine a world without advertising and that may be how it ends up feeling to users but ads of one type or another are and will probably remain the primary revenue stream for online publishers for the next decade (unless of course you take the stance that “everyone’s a publisher” but I’m talking about net-native business models here.)

IMO, fb (and twitter) are neither media site nor web application. Zuckerberg says it best when he defines his site as a “social utility.” These sites are the PSE of the internet and trying to be a media site is what kills them (I’m talking to you, myspace.) I wouldn’t be surprised if the true utilities like fb, youtube, twitter ultimately found a way to get their revenue directly from the ISP’s.