My hunch is Zillow’s next move is to figure out how to weave real estate agents into the Neighborhood Advice process — likely by giving Premiere Agents branding inside that Facebook Connect experience and encouraging buyers to contact the agents in addition to their friends who live there.

Sound cool? You can try it here.

This is a brilliant strategic product decision by Zillow in my book.

Safe to say, I still bleed green and blue — and speaking of that, I think need a REALLY sweet ass Z t shirt, or a “Z” patch for my backpack *hint hint*.

Congrats to Spencer Rascoff, my old friends/colleagues, and the entire team over there for moving the needle in the right direction.

So, what’s the company ultimately worth? I’d say the company is worth more than a billion dollars on brand power alone. Zillow is a verb – not many websites EVER make it to that point. So a billion dollars for the brand, and then add whatever revenue prospects you want on top of that. In other words, A LOT of money (35.77 per share at the end of day 1 trading) — and I hope it continues to increase for obvious reasons.

Here’s the Zillow Blog post from CEO Spencer Rascoff.

[Update 7/20: I posted some predictions as to where the fresh capital will be spent over at AgentGenius]

For old times sake (see this, this, this, this, and this), I thought I’d keep a running list of the coverage of the Zillow IPO set to happen tomorrow, July 20 (opening at $20 per share), over the course of the next day — maybe weeks if the stock prices rises to crazy highs .

Here’s the running coverage, starting with a few of today’s stories:

• TechCrunch – Zillow Prices IPO At $20 Per Share, Now Valued At Nearly $540 Million
• Business Insider – Zillow Prices IPO at $20 Per Share
• Associated Press - Zillow sets IPO at $20 per share in Weds.
• Techflash – Zillow ups IPO pricing to $20 a share; now valued at $539 million
• GigaOm - Zillow to IPO Wednesday at $20 per share
• GeekWire – Zillow prices IPO at $20 per share, signaling strong demand for the online real estate company
• Agent Genius - Breaking: Zillow begins trading publicly tomorrow at $20 per share
• SeekingAlpha – As Zillow IPOs, Remember: Bubble 2.0 Is for Active Traders Only

July 20

• The Street – Market Preview: Zillow Primed for Pricey Debut
• 247WallSt – At $20 Pricing, Zillow IPO Creates Another Valuation Hat Trick
• InmanNext – Taking Advantage Of Zillow On IPO Day
• Bloomberg – Zillow Triples to $60 in Stock Market Debut
• CNBC – Zillow IPO Doubles, SkullCandy Leaps, in Debut
• CNNMoney – Zillow shares pop 120% in IPO
• Zillow IPO bodes well for real estate

July 21

• Zillow IPO gets warm welcome — but will it last?
• GeekWire – Zillow IPO sparks bubble worries, but here’s what the pundits are missing

Zillow CEO Spencer Rascoff on Bloomberg:

Yes, Lee Hoff caught my attention with her profile photo while I was browsing the web this evening (after navigating from Kris’ most recent Inman column to Josette Skilling’s site to mortgage rates on Zillow)

And while we’re on the subject of Zillow’s new agent reviews, of course none other than Jay Thompson penned up a fabulous post that I wholeheartedly agree with. Take a look.

Over the past 4 years, I’ve worked with so many fantastic people, both internally and externally, and have built some incredible relationships that extend well beyond business. I’ve learned volumes from colleagues David Gibbons, Spencer Rascoff, Diane Tuman, Liam Lavery, and Amy Bohutinsky (among many others). Update: Michael Dougherty and Jeff Somers, both no longer with Zillow, should also be included in that list. Yet with a primarily externally facing job, I’ve learned just as much from those outside the friendly confines of Zillow; individuals such as Mike Price (who by the way needs to get on WordPress), Kris Berg, Jay Thompson, Ines Hegedus-Garcia, Jeff Turner, Eric Stegemann, and Jim Marks. And honestly, please don’t take it wrongly if I didn’t mention you here; if I had to name everyone, the list would go on and on (and on and on) and I’d never finish this post.

What’s next? For the answer to that, all I will say is that traveling internationally is part of my 2010 plans (no surprise there). I will be staying on in a consulting role for Zillow.com. Outside of that I’ve been discussing various opportunities with a number of parties, but will wait until I flesh out those ideas to completion before sharing details.

Thank you to everyone, both at Zillow and externally, for all the wonderful memories and opportunities presented to me over the past 4 years. Everyone has been great to work with, but I have to extend an extra thanks to David for all the guidance he’s given me over the past several years. Thank you to Rich and Lloyd for starting Zillow with the vision to bring transparency to the real estate and mortgage industries. Without them, obviously none of this would have been possible. I’m still confident in the direction the company is headed and it goes without saying that I wish Zillow and all my colleagues there the best of luck going forward, and will do whatever I can to help them succeed.

There is so much more I could say, but I’ve purposely tried to keep this post short in fear of this becoming a novel. I’ll continue to keep people updated with my whereabouts and career plans here and on Twitter. If you have any questions or comments you don’t feel comfortable sharing in the comments, feel free to e-mail me (meyers dot drew at gmail).

It’s been a wild ride; now onto the next chapter in my life…

Median Value / sq. ft.

• Pick your battles — I’m an opinionated guy, sometimes too much so. But it’s because I’m passionate about what I do — if I wasn’t, quite frankly, I’d be doing something else. But regardless of how badly you want to, you can’t fight every battle.  Know when to push, let up, escalate, concede, etc. Know that some battles are not worth fighting. This lesson could also be “Be strategic about using your political capital – you only have so much of it”
• Don’t use social media marketing if your product sucks — If you have a crappy product, no amount of social media marketing will work regardless of how many resources you throw at it. After all, social media marketing is REAL; expect your audience to puke all over you if they don’t see value in your product.
• Persistence is key — This is a biggie. Everyone is busy, myself is included. To get things done, you have to be persistent and confident what you are advocating for is the correct decision/course of action. Follow up, follow up, follow up.
• Partnerships are like friendships — they take time and effort to nurture. If both sides aren’t willing to put in equal effort, the partnership is not going to be a success in the long run.
• Choose the right technical solution from the get-go — yes, certainly this is easier said than done, but if at all possible, make sure the technical solution you go with is right from the start. For instance, migrating Zillow Blog from typepad to wordpress was a nightmare that I would have rather not had to do (we should have just picked wordpress to start with). However, realize that sometimes the wrong decision is made initially and that’s okay. My advice in those situations is to migrate over to the correct solution as quickly as physically possible once you realize that you should be using another technical solution. The longer you wait to migrate, the more time and effort you’ll likely spend doing the migration.
• LISTEN — I can not stress the importance of this one enough. There are so many people/companies who are GREAT at talking, but horrible at listening; don’t be one of them.
• Take advantage of public speaking opportunities — If you’re given opportunities for public speaking engagements, take them. It’s such valuable experience to have in the long run that will make you a more confident person. Plus, just as blogging puts you in a spotlight that often results in unexpected opportunities to arise, public speaking will lead to opportunities in a similar fashion.

I’m sure there are a few others I’m missing, but this is a start. Maybe I’ll do a Part 2 on this topic at some point in the future.

The brand new Zillow iPhone App has been in the works for several months now and I’ve been using a test version for a few weeks, but today is the day we were finally able to unveil it to the world. My friends and I are constantly walking around Queen Anne and wondering what some of the unbelievable homes on the South Side of the hill are worth and which ones sold recently, and now we can instantly look up that information on our iPhones. For the iPhone readers, I’d strongly urge you to try the app out. I’m biased of course, but I truly think it’ll change the way you walk around your neighborhood.

If you are an iPhone user and try the new app, please leave a review in the App Store.