Why I've started blogging on Trulia Blogs

I'm very excited to write my first blog post on Trulia's new blogging platform. I've been thinking about starting a personal blog of my own for a while, but with all the hectic day to day of life at Trulia, I have not had the chance to get around to it. When I've wanted to blog I would often jump over to post on Trulia's Company Blog, but with the launch of Trulia's new free blogging platform I've decided to take the plunge and start (somewhat) regularly blogging...

I'm going to be writing mostly about real estate, Trulia, technology, start-ups and places that I've lived or visited. Building Trulia over the last 3+ years has been quite an adventure and I'm looking forward to sharing my experiences with you and also getting some direct feedback from everyone on what we are doing at Trulia and how we can improve. Leave any thoughts, suggestions, ideas in the comments section and I'll try and get to them.

One thing that has really surprised me and I often hear this from reporters and analysts that cover many Industries is that I am really amazed at both the quality and quantity of the real estate blogs out there. To me it is unlike any other traditional industry in the US, where you have so many active and knowledgeable bloggers writing on and about real estate. Think about it, with the exception of the technology industry itself (and possibly sport), no other Industry comes close! I'm delighted to join this group and help even more people talk about real estate with Trulia Blogs.

So you may be wondering why on earth does the world need another blog platform. He's my thoughts on why we're launching Trulia Blogs:

• It's uniquely useful. Other than the Q and A service, Trulia Voices, there is no good national real estate where you can have useful and interesting discussions about all things real estate between consumers and industry professionals. Sure, I'm biased and there are some great local services, but Trulia Voices and Trulia Blogs are really a unique way to interact with a large and interested group of people. We see Trulia Blogs and Trulia Voices are complementary services.
• It's free and really easy. We have deliberately tried to make blogging as simple and accessible as possible. It shouldn't be daunting. We know there are many options out there if you want to build your own blog, but Trulia Blogs is a simple service for you to get up and running as quickly possible and learn the basics. We don't have every possible feature you can find on other paid services, but we have the basic important tools and constantly adding new features.
• It's local. When it comes to real estate everyone knows that location is critical. We all love (or hate) our communities we live in and have an opinion about what goes on there. We are interested when new shops open up, roads are built, schools re-zoned, licenses granted and thousands of other things, Trulia Blogs is a way to share this information and begin the conversation with others in your vicinity. I'm truly fascinated to see what people use Trulia Blogs for and what conversations start here.

With this launch, I'd like to say a huge thank you to the team at Trulia that designed and built the blogging service. They are also responsible for Trulia Voices and like all the Trulians they are a truly wonderful group of talented and smart people that I have the privilege to work with.

Also, a huge huge thank you to the users of the community here on Trulia. It's you that make Trulia's community services great and thank you for showing up and participating. Don't hesitate to get in touch with product ideas, bugs and suggestions. We're constantly releasing new updates so will work on including them.

Looking forward to the conversation!