Don't understand the On Demand model?

Check out this video from the Salesforce "Future of Software" event in London on the 13th September. (There could be a need for a leaving contact information to see it.)

The event is two hours, but you're able to jump between the different parts.

Marc on the SaaS model:  fast forward to 64 minutes in to the presentation
Click on the Carbon Trust in the menu and wait to Marc is back. It's also possible to click in the timeline box to jump in the presentation.

A business case:    take a look at the Total Jobs presentation (by the way, this guy has brilliant presentation skills!)

Source: found the video at the "Where is the upside?" blog

Simplicity or Easier to use?

Found an interesting entry on the 37signals blog about simplicity.

"Imagine a world in which software companies simplified their programs every year by shipping with 10% fewer features at 10% higher cost due to the expense of simplification. For the consumer to get less and pay more seems to contradict sound economic principles…Yet in spite of the logic of demand, “simplicity sells.”

It's an interesting point, but I would go for a strategy to make the product 10% easier to use for every year. Not necessarily taking away functionality.

Zillow adds user generated house data

Found a post on Techcrunch about Zillow starting to add user generated data to its Zestimate on Wednesday morning (I assume that is Seattle time, so another 6-8 hours). Actually they are providing two zestimates; one based on public records and one on user generated data.

As put by Michael at Techcrunch "I would expect people to be aggressive about updating Zillow information when they put their home up for sale".

So situations like the one "about a seller who immediately pulled his home off the market after a prospective buyer confronted him with a Zestimate $500,000 below his assessed value. His conclusion is that Zillow.com has made his home unmarketable." Read more here at BloodHoundBlog.

Update at 9 a.m. CET
Just after completing the post above Drew (active blogger at DrewMeyersInsights and Zillow employee) found me being online over Skype and we started chatting. Drew told me that the new release (called z2) has been launched (a few hours before deadline). Zillow's Chairman and CEO Rich Barton has posted an entry on their blog about their thoughts.

Here you found how the update process is executed. You first has to prove that you are the legal owner. There are three ways of doing it, including faxing(!) legal documents to Zillow. Could be quite an effort for Zillow to handle internally if millions of homeowners prefer this method. Finally, I guess all brokers will put some "pressure" on the seller to update their home at Zillow before putting the house on the market.

Update at 8.30 p.m. CET
US has waken and so has the Real Estate blogosphere. One know what was going to happen... Zillow does something and quite a few people have very strong feelings about it.

The non-believers;
Bloodhoundrealty  (you have to give him credit for his consistency)
Sellsius   
Charlottesville  

The believers;
Robbie at Seattle's Rain City Guide  
AnyGeo   
RealEstateCoach    

My call?   Believer to 100%.  
If I were moving to US, I would indeed be using Zillow. Should I take the Zestimates for granted? No, but it is for sure a better starting point then nothing moving to a new place. Especially by comparing different suburbs to each other (the heat-maps are brilliant).

It seams that some people take credit of the new functionality added on Zillow (see the comments on the techcrunch post). Please, don't underestimate the people at Zillow. I don't know about their product roadmap but I'm absolute convinced that this has been on their horizon from the start. I also believe Ardell at Seattle Rain City Guide is on to the next step in her comment to this post... 

Mike's Corner takes a look at UK

Michael Price at MLPodcast runs the excellent blog Mikes Corner. Especially worth reading is his interviews with a number of Internet services. This week he added an European site, Nestoria. You find it here.

Salesforce sets a new standard in product rollout

It's common for business to talk about how they communicate with their users and listening to them, but the question is if anyone is doing it more then Salesforce.

With their upcoming Winter 07 release they have created a new channel, ideas.salesforce.com, where they "plan to release details of new features for you to view, vote and comment upon... our product managers will be on hand to read and respond to your comments, one-on-one".  (Read more about it at SalesforceWatch.)

How do you communicate with your clients?