Move’s “New Business Venture” unit led by Allan Dalton has been officially dissolved.

Thanks for the thoughtful feedback.

My response to the IP rights…
At least in my Atlanta market (FMLS), the broker owns the listing and agrees to co-op by participating in FMLS.

Here’s how I see it works with Broker owning the listing (via written agreement)….
Consumer agrees in writing to grant Broker the right to market a property for the better good of the consumer (with a bundle of expectations and rights and fees). Broker allows an Agent to act on its behalf (with a bundle of expectations and rights and fees) to execute this agreement with Consumer. Agent then submits listing to Broker who in turn submits the data of the property to the MLS (with a bundle of expectations and rights and fees). From there we could follow this data all the way to Realtor.com, Zillow, blogs, etc…

But when you peel back the layers, the written agreement of the ‘listing’ terms is only between the Consumer and Broker and this agreement transfers rights TO THE BROKER. Therefore as a broker, I believe I own the IP of my listings. I choose to share it with others to obtain the best results for my consumer. The key word in that last sentence is ‘choose’. Currently, I wish I had better options than Move.

Unless I misread the 10-K, Move specifically mentions their contract with NAR. It has no termination date. And while there are conditions under which NAR can get out of the agreement, I doubt they are any that Move is likely to allow happen (for example, I think if traffic falls below 500K in a year, NAR can get out).

Even if NAR’s membership were to revile Realtor.com, it still has more listings than anyone else in the online game right now.

IF Move had continued to snooze while the Usurpers grew stronger, then I could see a situation 2-3 years from now where things could get dicey. But like I said, Lorna Borenstein strikes me as a valkyrie come to bring war to Trulia and Zillow and their ilk. I imagine that Realtor.com will soon be brimming with various features and functionality.

None of that, of course, addresses your cost concern. I’d expect costs to go up, not down, in the future — if Move’s view of the future is to be believed. I somehow doubt they’d volunteer to miss earnings numbers to keep the prices low for you folks.

Your last graf is the most interesting. Because the IP rights over the listing are of relatively dubious provenance. Move gets the data presumably from MLSes; do they own the data? Each broker? Each agent? The consumer?

Curiouser, and curiouser.

-rsh

Is it feasible to foresee NAR’s membership rally enough support to challenge the relationship between NAR and Move? What if T or Z became a valid competitor to Move, would NAR then shop for the best value for it’s members?

I think it’s time the NAR brokers raised their voice and claimed what is theirs. These listings are our listings. We worked to get them, work to service them and work to close them. Shouldn’t we shop around for the best value in service providers?

You can see some of the items they are experimenting with there. I think there will be a focus on UGC from both agents and consumers.

I agree they could hit it out of the park but the this is still a wide open field since the leader only has a 9%- 10% market share.

The item none of them have been able to solve is to show the real ROI of their advertising to the agents – in my opinion this is the real opportunity. Once they can do that, then agents will go with the source that provides them the best return even if it’s the most expensive.

1 more thing – check out the severance agmt that Move filed today with Allan Dalton. $625K papyout, plus relocation, plus your equity vested, plus COBRA, plus $3K/month.

Ha – that’s better then what Zillow and Trulia make a year w/ Ad Sense or EZAds!

Good thing Move is cleaning house.

Lastly, Top Producer – do you think Z and T are forced to get in that game? TP is a great on-ramp for featured listings. And no one has really challenged TP. Why can’t there be another Salesforce.com in the agent CRM space?

I was thinking of doing a longer post just on that point you raise: proprietary content. As it happens, I’m in a position to know a thing or two about that…. I’d just like to make sure I’m not divulging anything I shouldn’t.

Suffice to say, generally, that proprietary content is at once the most valuable and the most difficult to acquire asset. So when Move talks about “proprietary content”, I wonder if they really mean it. They, among the RE.net, might be one of a few that could pull it off.

Move could hit it out the park, yes. 2008 will be a watershed year for them, I think. But it’s a mistake to believe that their installed base is too big to overcome — both consumers and agents are fickle. It will be a question of “What have you done for me lately?” with both groups, and there’s no question the Young Turks are making waves.

I just wouldn’t count Move out of the game. The earnings call made it clear to me that the management there gets it, understands the threat, and is committed to winning.

-rsh

It needs to singularly focus on MLS homes.

What do you make of their desire to focus on content? What kind of content? The neighborhood stuff? – that product is really heavy and slow. Are they going to put more behind blogs?

Move has the oppty to hit it out of the ballpark. There’s no way over time that Trulia or Zillow can compete with them. The installed based of both users and agents is too big to overcome.