I've been using Zillow for awhile. The site allows you to check the value of your home – as well as other people's homes. It's a lot of fun and yes, kind of voyeuristic.

But, I recently learned about a similar site: Trulia. Actually, this week, the company raised $15 million in venture capital. The lead investor on the round was Deep Fork Capital. In all, Trulia has raised $33 million.

It's definitely impressive – especially in light of the terrible real estate industry. Then again, Trulia is attempting to transform an industry – which, if successful, could result in a big payday.

Something else: Trulia has built a division for real estate professionals. That is, with the huge amounts of data and traffic (about five million unique visitors per month), there are many opportunities for advertising revenues. Keep in mind that real estate brokers spend $11 billion per year on marketing.

So why raise the $15 million? Actually, Trulia put together a blog post on it:

"We know from our industry partners that they are transitioning their marketing efforts and services online, big time. We've recently launched the Trulia Advertising Network and Trulia Pro and we plan to aggressively expand our advertising opportunities to give the real estate community hyper-targeted and cost effective ways to make the marketing transition online.

"Real estate agents are not just spending their dollars online, but increasingly they are working to build their 'online presence'--answering questions, blogging, participating on forums and building out their web sites. This is happening quickly and it's important that we move quickly to meet the demand."

Tom Taulli is the author of various books, including The Complete M&A Handbook and The Edgar Online Guide to Decoding Financial Statements. He also operates MergerBook.com.