Zillow: The glory days are over

Service: Zillow

What it does: Zillow is the Big Kahuna of real estate sites. Best known for an algorithm-driven feature that tracks home values, Zillow also offers real estate listings and online community features, such as a Q&A section, and owner-posted house photos.

Failings: Zillow is so 2006. The business model is based on advertising CPMs, and now that the real estate bubble has burst, it's much less fun to track the (sinking) value of your home. There's more competition as well, including Trulia and Redfin. As of late last year, Zillow's U.S. traffic was up 11 percent, to 1.9 million unique visitors per month, while Trulia's U.S. traffic was up 130 percent, to 1.2 million unique visitors per month, according to Comscore.

Turnaround potential: Solid brand equity. Zillow is practically synonymous with home-valuation sites in the United States.

'Net Views:

Simon Baker: "Sites like Zillow.com get a lot of press and they look great but will they deliver? ... I doubt whether they do more than US$3 million a year compared to Realtor.com's US$300 million."

Management: CEO Richard Barton, founder of Expedia; Funding of $87 million by Benchmark Capital, Technology Crossover Ventures, Legg Mason, and PAR Capital Management.

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