Trulia And Topix

Trulia is watching you.

This week they announced the development of a widget that will promote listings from neighborhoods based on localized information about the user, capturing the ever-evasive longtail markets.

One site of the 50,000 odd sites that Trulia is seeking to partner with in installing the widget is Topix, a Web-based news community that allows users to post and browse articles relevant to their topics of interest.

Today’s widget launch on Topix will show Topix users a grouping of listings in close proximity to them, and clicks on the listings will send them to Trulia to read further.

"We're really excited about this," Trulia CEO Pete Flint said of the new partnership with Topix. "We've seen the best results when we've gotten down to the hyperlocal level. The great thing about Topix is they have a huge national reach as well as local content."

Topix is the fourth most-popular stand-alone newspaper site on the internet, as well as the seventh-ranked Web site within the newspaper subcategory of news and information sites, according to comScore. Clearly, this partnership will be a great coup for Trulia.

This is not just another widget. Service providers in the real estate industry should see this as a worthwhile tool to promote their businesses online. Topix CEO Chris Tolles says that because the newsfeed is localized, it offers a great opportunity for users to differentiate themselves from other sites. This looks to be another way for service providers to find free exposure on the Web, and they’d be smart to use it.