Only three weeks after setting a Make Me Move price on Zillow, I received my first bite. The online real estate web site Zillow released a new feature ealier this month enabling homeowners to publicly set the price it would take for them to sell their home. It also enabled people to advertise their house for sale on the site.

I just bought my San Francisco flat so I don't really want to sell. But, a profit is a profit, and there definitely is a price I'd be willing to move for. I set that at $600,000 more than what I paid for it in June. There is little turnover of apartments in my neighborhood but I didn't think anyone would be interested. In light of recent real estate prices in the Bay Area, I wasn't sure I could even get the price I paid for it six months ago if I tried to sell it now. So, when I received this message in my e-mail inbox yesterday, I was surprised:

Would you be willing to sell at $tktk purchase price or is there some basis for the $tktk [Make Me Move price]? Or is this just a fantasy? Thanks. tktk

I'm going to respond directly to the inquirer, point to some comps, note that almost any price can be justified on paper and add that I'd be willing to sell for a serious offer significantly above what I paid. I'm not holding my breath for a response but would certainly welcome one.

The interaction highlights the problem with the Make Me Move feature. It's a novelty that will yield little value to homeowners or prospective buyers. If a homeowner really wanted to sell their house, they would put it up for sale at a realistic price. And no homebuyer is going to overpay to indulge the dream of a seller. It will be impossible to bridge that gap.

As was noted earlier this month, this feature has been offered before and it didn't take off. To me, Make Me Move is a fun, attention-grabbing service -- like some of Zillow's more egregious home valuations-- that provides nothing more than entertainment value.

For Zillow, Make Me Move is another step in its effort to generate traffic and attention so that it can facilitate home buying and selling directly through its site. This is where the value can be built and Zillow can really make its mark. By aggregating enough buyers and sellers on its site, it can create an online real estate marketplace outside the traditional real estate-broker dominated MLS system. Through a partnership with a fixed price brokerage service such as Madrona Venture-backed Redfin, Zillow could own the entire home selling process from beginning to end.

At least, that's the idea. Zillow is a long way from getting there. For now, homebuyers want to see everything available in their target market and for that, they'll use MLS or an online real estate search engine such as Accel Partners-backed Trulia. Compare the two maps below. One is from Zillow, which has 34 for-sale listings in San Francisco. The other is from Trulia, which incorporates more data and has 938 listings.

Zillow's challenge is to continue to close that gap not by aggregating data from around the web but by continuing to enourage homeowners like myself to register their homes on its site. To do that, it's got to grab attention, which is what the Make Me Move feature and faulty Zestimates are really good for.

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