Rich Barton and Lloyd Frink, founders of Expedia, launched Zillow, a real estimate site in Feb 2005. Zillow is known for providing free home valuations called Zestimates, which are somewhat accurate. Zillow also provides house specs, graphing, mapping, and analysis tools. Zillow launched Smart Search along with enhanced Neighborhood Pages that makes it easier for
Vertical Strategy Google has adamantly maintained that a magically simple, clean User Interface is part of its key to world domination. This year, however, we have started seeing a clear trend towards verticalization of the web. In fact, my entire Web 3.0 thesis is based on verticalization, and Vertical Search, in particular, is a key
by Cal McElroy, Guest Author Think about where you are right now… How would you describe your location? Near Boston. In the Board Room at Sequoia Capital. At Rockefeller Center. On the Hollywood Walk of Fame, near Hollywood & Vine. In the Glamour Shots store, on level two, within Mall of America. In Casino Niagra,
by Cal McElroy, Guest Author I have been following with fascination (and taking many calls from research analysts), regarding the public market buzz around Local.com (NASDAQ: LOCM). This firestorm was triggered by John Gilliam’s recent blog on SeekingAlpha. While I personally think John’s assessment of this patent is overzealous (he did disclose he was long
by Cal McElroy, Guest Author I started this series on Local Search by discussing the current state of the technologies, content, and user experience. For Local Search to become a significant business, like paid keyword search, much needs to change. Google dominates the business of keyword search because they started with a great search service…
by Cal McElroy, Guest Author Location is fundamental to our personal and business lives – yet it is a concept that is easily and often misunderstood. The Oxford Dictionary defines this word as “the point or extent of space that is occupied by a person, place or thing”. So a place is not a location
by Cal McElroy, Guest Author In a previous post, I suggested that integration of search and location technologies was a difficult problem, that has not been solved. To provide some context for this series on local search, I want to dig into the technologies a little more. Location technology emerged out of the computer graphics
by Cal McElroy, Guest Author Our family has always been keen on board games… especially Risk and Monopoly. The early stage of these games was always calm and friendly, as we picked our playing pieces, set up the board and shuffled the cards. However, once the land or property was secured and the game advanced,