The Land of Real Estate Wikis
Inman has a new real estate wiki. At first blush, I thought that made three real estate wikis - Zillow Wiki, InmanWiki and Realki, an RE wiki our friends from Realbird developed - and I concluded that real estate wikiworld was utterly saturated. Lo and behold, Realki redirected to InmanWiki... Inman just acquired Realki and at least it's a good readership match. However, I think wikis need to evolve into relevancy.
In December's Yankee Blog Swap, I authored a guest post at the Zillow blog called The Potential of Real Estate Wikis. The problem with wikis is they are limited by their current role as authoritative information sources. They are like encyclopedias, and it's hard to add more relevant content to an encyclopedia. Second, two real estate encyclopedias seem redundant - like Grolier's and World Book, who needs both sets? - and that is why there is only one Wikipedia.
Finally, the construct of a wiki is difficult to browse and to find "fresh content". InmanWiki's main page has a search window, but querying simple terms like "California" and "blogs" yields results that are not contextually linked, like a very early search engine. The wiki search gateway is simply too narrow for entry into the article banks and leaves the user a bit frustrated. Articles should be laid out in categories like Zillow does. Also, Zillow has a sidebar of five most recently created pages but there should be a drop down window that lists more fresh content by date added. Blogs are sticky due to fresh content, wikis aren't as sticky because users will use wikis like encyclopedias, only on a need to know basis.
One of these wikis has to evolve. I previously wrote: For example, incorporating a wiki into a google map mashup would allow granular real estate commentary - tagged by pushpins - down to the zip code or listing (so the map doesn't get too messy, the commentary could be archived). MyCurrency, a newly launched user-generated housing valuation site, does this. Realtors and other users can add commentary and pricing estimates to listings presented on google maps. The agents will contribute content for the promise of marketing themselves as neighborhood experts and generating leads from impressed consumers. The content is compelling because it is changing with each user input. Wikis must evolve to make their user contributions just as rewarding... right now wiki content seems static and not worth the RSS feed (hmm, I guess the wikis don't have RSS feeds... that says it all).
Technorati Tags: wiki, Zillow, Zillow wiki, Inman, Inman wiki, Realki, real estate wiki, real estate, encyclopedia
Pat-
Interesting article here -- thanks for the kind comments about the Zillow wiki.
I don't know if I necessarily agree regarding your point about people wanting to find "fresh" content. If someone is looking for fresh content, why not just find a relevant real estate blog?
In my mind, blogs and wikis are both useful for different reasons. Blogs for articles written by individuals and wikis for collaborative content.
I do agree that there should be a way to view the most recently created/edited pages -- but I think that list will only be interesting to die-hard contributors who are intent to make improvements to numerous articles.
Further feedback on the Zillow wiki is appreciated. We're working on a couple additions that will make it more user-friendly, but are always listening for further ideas.
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I'm pretty much of the opinion that Wikipedia is the only wiki of true value and importance. Everything else is pretty much just wannabe Wikipedia.
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I just stumbled upon the Zillow Wiki the other day and was mildly impressed. I think there is a need. Zillow has an impressive head start, and the traffic to back it up...
But I don't see this as a battle similar to the online encyclopedia battles. An all encompassing encyclopedia is quite a bit different than a small real estate wiki/knowledge base. There is room at the inn.
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Justin I agree. However I stumbled onto another wiki the other day that was just launched last month and I think they have done a tremendous job at getting a wikipedia like site for the real estate industry together. Obviously and new wiki is just a start but it already has over 7,000 entries and seems to categorize the content in an easy to follow, logical manner. As it not directly tied to another company such as the Zillow wiki and Inman wiki I hope this one is a keeper.
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I think the wikis could be useful as long as they dont act as wikipedia clones. For instance offering a place for user generated content instead of having everything written from an admin.
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