Zillow and Other Companies Moving From Consumers to Businesses

The following is an excerpt from an article in 

The New York Times
Monday, August 06, 2012

Zillow and Other Companies Moving From Consumers to Businesses

By NICK WINGFIELD

SEATTLE — For the first few years of its existence, the only thing Zillow cared about was getting people to come to its real estate Web site to snoop on the market value of neighbors’ homes and other properties. Over 34 million visitors a month now do so.

In the last 18 months, though, Zillow has lavished its attention on a different audience: real estate agents. It has created one service that lets them build their own Web sites, one for broadcasting their property listings and another for managing communications with home seekers.

There used to be a clearer line between Internet companies that catered to consumers and those that served businesses. The market was neatly divided between the unglamorous business-to-business or B2B companies, operating mostly out of public view, and the flashier business-to-consumer or B2C companies. But with Zillow and a wave of similar firms, that distinction is fading.

LinkedIn, Groupon and GrubHub — consumer services that help people advertise their talents, find daily deals and order takeout food — are among the companies seeking to burrow more deeply into the operations of businesses in their respective markets. Some companies, like Zillow, are shifting toward business clients well after they were begun. For others, it has been part of the plan from the beginning.

Of course, most consumer Internet companies have long had relationships of some kind with other businesses. Amazon.com works with thousands of manufacturers and with sellers who use its site as a storefront. EBay, initially known as a marketplace for individuals to peddle collectibles and other goods, now has plenty of businesses that sell on its site. Then there are the businesses to which Facebook, Google and Yahoo sell advertising.

But consumer Internet companies of the newer generation are doing even more. In many cases, the tools they are providing businesses resemble specialized versions of so-called customer relationship management services from companies like Salesforce.com, which help businesses increase sales and keep track of communications with clients.

By moving in this direction, consumer Internet companies hope to tap potentially rich new sources of revenue, which could make them more attractive to investors. A company that gets business clients to depend on a broad set of its services can make it tougher for competitors to swipe its customers.