MOVE Acquires Point2 Syndication Contracts

It looks like MOVE, operators of Realtor.com, have taken a stride that is not altogether different from the success that Zillow is garnering with their acquisition strategy. MOVE is doing their best to control the pipelines that deliver advertising to portals in the United States. MOVE already owns ListHub, the largest syndicator of listing content. Now they pick up their nearest competitor – Point2 – much in the same way that Zillow picked up Trulia. The biggest difference, beyond taking out a competitor, is that they will removing a layer of duplication of listing syndication. Spencer Rascoff of Zillow describes today's listing syndication feeds as spaghetti. MOVE will now have a pretty good chance of cleaning up the problems.

Point2 is providing a single data point for CREA that amasses the country's listings from every market. MOVE did not buy that. Point2 will also continue to manage all of the syndication for CREA. Point2 will also retain all of their syndication technology; ListHub is just getting the contracts in the US with MLSs, Associations, and publishers.

This acquisition is for US listing syndication services only. Point2 will continue to provide MLS consumer facing websites, Point2 Agent Websites, Team Websites, Point2 Mobile, etc.

I tried to reach out to Saul Klein to chat with him about this, but he was not available. I imagine that his phone is on fire. Saul has been at the forefront of a project he called Contract Alignment – a process of using the listing syndication agreements between content providers and publishers to cure many of the ills of syndication. Knowing Saul, I doubt that he will drop the ball on this topic as a vocal supporter. He has a pretty untamable passion for this stuff. The saddest part is that he will no longer have a mechanism for getting in the middle to impact change. In other stunning news, Saul Klein and his partner John are no longer working with Point2 or Yardi, effective September 1.