Move Inc, the operators of REALTOR.com and a list of many quality products and services to the real estate industry has had a rough ride.  In total, they have lost over $2 Billion dollars in their history, and were profitable for two years.  On the surface, this sounds like pretty poor performance, but nothing could be further from the truth.  They have accomplished some outstanding milestones and could be close to hitting a home run.  All of the ingredients are in place.  They have the largest consumer audience with strong advertiser support, the most data, and significant agent/broker sales revenue.

Music streaming company Pandora faced similar performance from their early beginnings in 2000, but just hit the profit button to the tune of $100 Million (pun intended).  In reading their business story, they sound a lot like Move.

Both Move and Pandora rely on content provided by others to power the services they offer to consumers.  Move relies on the relationships with 900 MLSs for their data feeds; Pandora relies on licensing music from record labels.  If you will recall, Pandora was successful in negotiating $.08 per song (25% of revenue) to stay friendly with the record industry when Napster was trying to display music content royalty free.

Pandora got lucky.

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OK, early adopters get ready!  Who will be the first in your circle to get a new iPad?  Having moved to the Mac world myself last year, I am ready to go!  I find myself sounding like a paid ad whenever the topic of Mac comes up, but in truth, when I get on a PC now, it drives me crazy!  I love my Macs.  

PRESS RELEASE

iPad Available in US on April 3

Pre-Order on March 12

CUPERTINO, Calif., March 5 /PRNewswire-FirstCall/ – Apple® today announced that its magical and revolutionary iPad will be available in the US on Saturday, April 3, for Wi-Fi models and in late April for Wi-Fi + 3G models. In addition, all models of iPad will be available in Australia, Canada, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Spain, Switzerland and the UK in late April.

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Looking for a job in real estate?  Vendor Alley has just announced a great new tool for real estate technology companies, associations, MLSs and others to post their job openings.

Becuase of Vendor Alley’s “candor” and “calling it like they see it” tone, it attracts a broad and diverse audience of readers.  The blog often becomes the topic of conversations at conferences because it often says what everyone wants to say, but won’t.

We just posted a job for the EVP position for the Orlando Regional REALTOR AssociationMLS.  Go and check it - who knows you might find a new job too!

Press Release from Neilson:  Women and people between 35 and 54 are most apt to perform social networking activities via mobile device, according to data from The Nielsen Company.  Since Women are a core audience for REAL Estate Marketing, it would seem that social mobile networking would be a good strategy for agents and brokers today.

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MLS of Choice has been with us for a while now, but has not created any landscape changes in the MLS industry.

WAV Group has had the opportunity to observe the behavior of agents in two divergent situations in California.  CARETS and CalREDD.

Hypothesis:  Agents don’t care about the MLS system.  They care about selling homes, the service they get from their MLS, and the relationships they have with the organizations offering them services.

Case 1 - CARETS Data Share - 100,000 agents in the Los Angles and points south now can freely choose from a variety of REALTOR Associations an MLS providers for their services.  They have the opportunity to shop for the MLS system they like, the Association they like, the price point they like, and compare service offerings among the variety of member benefits that different MLSs and Associations offer.

In the Board Rooms, there were many anxious Directors pondering what would happen when agents had this much choice.  Would they migrate to the neighboring MLS to reduce fees?  Would Associations dump their MLS provider and move next door?  Would the MLS who offered the most services for the lowest price suddenly absorb everything around them?  The answer to all of these questions is……..

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