A Brand New Move.com
The lumbering beast that is Move.com is slowly transforming itself and just like a snake, it’s shedding it’s skin – but can it really get rid itself of an overwhelmingly negative reputation in this industry?
I think it’s trying to, with some degree of success.
They’ve scored some small scale PR victories of late with initiatives like sponsoring the Danny and Nina blog (which, by the way, was interesting when they were trying to decide where to live – but has degenerated into a boring personal lifeblog…. count me among the unsubscribed).
Technologically, they’ve made the leap into Real Estate 2.0 recently by leveraging Microsoft’s Virtual Earth platform for its new search tools (see Virtual Earth, a developer blog : Move.com Now Using Virtual Earth).
They’ve done a pretty neat integration that’s light years ahead of where they used to be. They still default to a hierarchal list of properties in the search results which is annoying, though you can easily switch to a map view.
They’ve added custom icons on the map that when you roll over they display expandable links that give greater detail of the property, including a bird’s eye view (note to Move.com developers – doesn’t play nice in Firefox in Mac OSX though).
It’s a nice implementation, though personally, I like the Extate and Redfin approach of moving that information off the map and to a side panel – I think it makes for a cleaner search experience.
Then comes the news that they’ve pulled in a new president in from Yahoo! and that David Lereah, NAR Chief Economist, is joining the team too. (That should make the folks at David Lereah Watch pretty happy).
It looks like Allan Dalton’s cooking up something big with his $6 million stealth project and it should be interesting to see what it is when it’s finally released… By the way, anyone with any inside information, let me know – futureofrealestate [at] gmail.com… anonymity guaranteed…
So can they execute on this transformation? I’m betting they can. There will be those who bear a grudge and they still have a long way to go to heal all old wounds. But the reality is they are a significant force to contend with and, even with all this new competition around them, just like any beast – they are the most dangerous when they’re backed into a corner.
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10 Comment(s)
8 Trackback(s)
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James Cramer Wannabe | May 1, 2007 | Reply
OK Joel and all the other Move fans. Move closed today at $4.70. If you’re a believer, put your money where your mouth is and take your next commission check and buy Move stock. Let’s true it up at the end of the year and see if you’re right.
If Move improves their site and products for users benefits, then the advertisers will come. If the advertisers come, then so will the revenue. As long as the revenues outpace their expense growth (little $6M stealth projects here are there), then the profits should come. If the profits come, then the WallStreeters will move the stock up.
Game on.
BTW – $6M for a stealth project. That’s the equivalent of a venture capital round for Trulia like endeavor. I wonder if Move would ever spin this project out. They could probably get more $ for it that way, then keeping it internal.
Food for thought.
Greg Tracy | May 2, 2007 | Reply
Move has the resources and may have a great idea they’re running with, but you get a bunch of big-company suits in a room and you can ruin the best of ideas…
John Schroeder | May 2, 2007 | Reply
It will be interesting to see Move’s move’s. Sorry…
Move.com has always seemed like one of those ambiguous companies. Maybe now we will see a better focus from them. They certainly are putting the right guys in charge.
John | May 2, 2007 | Reply
Move will never be able to pull the product and developer talent to compete on the product level with the likes of Google, Yahoo!, Zillow, Trulia, etc. They’ve proven they can aggregate traffic and throw hundreds of salespeople at realtors to make a buck… so what. They literally have >10-30x the number of employees as any of the other big players in the space, yet their market share has been steadily declining for the past year. I don’t see any true strategic competitive differentiators and see this company as a dying beast…
shaun mclane | May 2, 2007 | Reply
I’ve heard rumor that the $6m is a rebranding effort. Something to the effect of relaunching as a completely new site. The new additions would make sense if they are trying to beta features, and gather public opinion data.
The person I got this bit of info from has no sources, so I’m waving this off as just a bad rumor, but if you take the time to think about it, that rumor might not be such a bad idea. Move does have a negative rep, but it also has a fairly loyal following. They could carry their followers over, but launch as a new company – with all the hype that follows.
James Cramer is the man | May 2, 2007 | Reply
Move Shares Sink After Low 1Q Results
Wednesday May 2, 1:57 pm ET
Shares of Move, a Real Estate Web Site Operator, Drop After Reporting Low 1Q Results
NEW YORK (AP) — Shares of real estate Web site operator Move Inc. dropped more than 12 percent Wednesday, after the company’s first-quarter earnings missed Street estimates and several analysts cut estimates and price targets on the shares.
James RB | May 2, 2007 | Reply
Joel, totally agree with you. Extate has a much, much better UI than Move. Are they coming to the US? They now have a what looks like a US site link at the bottom, though it doesn’t seem to work. Yet?! Shake up the market for Move, Trulia, Redfin, Zillow?
Incredible Agent | May 2, 2007 | Reply
All this hype makes me think it’s just a PR game to re-generate interest in their website. So far, the folks at Move.com haven’t been very innovative and who knows if their new additions will help. You can’t buy innovation, even for $6 million. I for one will not be holding my breath in anticipation for their launch. Let it happen and then we can talk about it.
Kicked to the curb | May 3, 2007 | Reply
Beazer Homes Names Merrill CFO
Monday April 23, 8:47 am ET
Beazer Taps Allan Merrill As Chief Financial Officer to Replace James O’Leary, Who Left
ATLANTA (AP) — Beazer Homes USA Inc. on Monday named Allan Merrill chief financial officer, replacing James O’Leary, who left the company last month.
Merrill was most recently executive vice president of corporate development and strategy at Move Inc., operator of the Web site Homebuilder.com.
Louise | May 3, 2007 | Reply
Huh. Where’s the extate link?