Where’s Barton?

When Bill Gates left Microsoft, I wondered what success Microsoft would enjoy going forward. After all, Bill had long been the kind face of the plodding giant, keeping it from falling on its fat ass, as it should have, on many occasions. Despite the unintuitive technology and hacker bait software, you could depend on the slight, spectacled Bill, with his enormous IQ, to look into the news camera and promise hope for the future with every new release. And the PC crowd bought it– again and again. But without Bill’s visibility, Microsoft’s brand may finally become its name.

Then I thought of the big real estate brands– Realtor had Alan Dalton at every conference, tossing verbal darts at his rivals, calling them out as hucksters or carnival acts. And the crowd went wild for it, despite Realtor.com’s alleged pickpocketing of members during the show. T rulia has Pete Flint and Smilin’ Sami, glad handing and back patting their way into the hearts and minds of real estate agents, like BFFs at a beer bash. And the brand has grown on the goody-two-shoes of those two, despite some cloaks found hidden in their closet.

And then there is Zillow’s Rich Barton. He was the uber-entrepreneur, ex-Expedia media star darling of Zillow, serving up glasses of mystery mimosas at every real estate brunch he got himself invited to, which was gladly gulped by the gullible MSM gang during the pre-launch ga-ga phase. The transparency prophet went out to preach the gospel of zestimation, reading from the Blue Book of Kelley, during the beta birthing.

But then, all of a sudden (by my reckoning), like a guy who has hit his head too hard on a glass door, he wanders off. Where’s Barton? I ask myself. Shouldn’t he be minding the store and minding the media? Shouldn’t he be at the front gate like Mr. Gates was all those long years instead of behind a glass door? Is it my imagination that has me zestimating he no longer wants to work that hard on the House of Zillow, that he’s left the brand in the hands of the firm of Gibbons, Meyers & Rascoff? Where have you gone Joe DiMaggio, our nation turns its lonely eyes to you?

Perhaps Barton was never a war general but merely a paper tiger, meant to be displayed at opening bells. Or maybe he thinks he can build a grand brand as an absentee owner, splitting his time with his other web build-outs. If that’s the case, I don’t think the Z brand will hold its value and folks will just wreck the joint– that’s just my guestimate.

And how do the Zillow troops feel about the Barton fade? How does it affect their morale to know their CEO has opened a glass door shop in Sausalito? I can only picture the gallant Mr. G, dueling in the digs of the blogosphere, shoveling comments against the incoming tide of criticism, daily checking his alert box to see where his next verbal boxing match is being held— wondering what his stock options are going to be worth while Mr. Barton is wondering what others are worth.

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