Roost- app developers or real estate search?
After a $5.5M investment to launch them in May 2007 and another $8M round of funding in December 2008 and growing into the real estate space as a regular fixture, Roost.com is no longer a real estate search site, rather Roost is now appears to be positioning itself as a technology company focused on building social media applications.
“We’ve actually always been a technology company. Started as a real estate search engine in 2008 then switched to a real estate application development company in 2010. Now we build social applications and platforms for business professionals and small and medium-sized business. These just so happen to include real estate agents and brokers,” said Derek Overbey, Roost.com Senior Director of Community Development.
Shifting gears
Although no one at Roost ever corrected us nor any other media outlet for all the years they were referred to exclusively as a real estate search company, the fact remains that a search site company they are no more. At one time, Roost even got into the fray of whose listings were more accurate and eventually the piddle war of who had more listings.
The bottom line is that Roost is a technology company that has offered a real estate search option as one of their products, but is now focused on social media applications.
We will enthusiastically watch as the company produces SMB apps but their potential to overtake Trulia, Zillow, HotPads or others is officially over as they say they’re not a real estate search company.
Editor’s note: The launch this week of Roost’s “Social Marketing Platform” brought up their corporate identity and although they changed their business model in 2010, we felt it necessary to reiterate their position as confusion in the marketplace remains.
Last September, Roost gave an exclusive interview to a news organization that limits content viewing to the public, however in that interview, Roost touts a shift, not a foreshadowed social media direction in technology, contradicting their current position.
