Earlier this year, Inman called out Zillow Group for hyping its MLS customer growth for its listing management platform Bridge Interactive. Now it looks like the real estate giant is trying to pass off an old tool as a new one through a rebrand.
Compose, a key component of Bridge Interactive, has been “reimagined” as Bridge Listing Input with no apparent significant changes to the tool.
Last week Zillow Group announced that the “newly launched tool” — Bridge Listing Input — went live in the Atlanta metro market with adoption by Atlanta’s two MLSs — Georgia MLS (GAMLS) and First MLS (FMLS) — with no mention of the tool being the same or an updated version of Compose. GAMLS and FMLS have been using Compose since at least April. Atlanta is a unique market in that agents must be members of both MLSs in order to see all available listings.
Bridge Interactive Director of MLS and Industry Relations Turan Tekin told Inman that Bridge Listing Input is a “new and reimagined version of our Compose offering that includes an expanded feature set.”
“While Compose streamlines the listings data entry process for individual MLS databases, Bridge Listing Input provides a single point of entry to submit listings to multiple MLS databases, as well as franchise and broker back office systems,” Tekin added.
In response to Inman’s request for comment, FMLS’s Cantey Davis wrote: “FMLS has been doing business with Bridge for over 10 years; various products including Compose. I think, in layman’s terms Compose was designed to allow a broker to input data into a single MLS system. Whereas, Listing Input is designed to accommodate entry in to multiple MLSs.”
The single entry feature appears to have already been a part of Compose’s offerings, however. As reported by Inman in April:
Bridge’s Compose is a web application that allows brokers and agents to add and edit listings in a variety of systems, including multiple MLSs and brokerage back-office systems. This means agents and brokers are able to enter their real estate listings in Compose once and have them appear in the multiple MLSs they belong to — provided the MLSs adhere to a particular real estate data standard.
Tekin also mentioned Bridge Listing Input’s media upload capabilities.
“Another compelling feature of Bridge Listing Input is its simplified process to upload and manage an unlimited number of high resolution photo and media files,” Tekin said in an email. The files are stored on the cloud via Amazon Web Services, and are retrievable for agents and brokers at will. Images uploaded to the MLS are the highest possible resolution. The MLS sets the file limits.
This also appears to have already been part of the tool’s offering. In March, Zillow Group exec Errol Samuelson told Inman, “Bridge can accept any number of ultra-high-resolution photos and send all images to the brokerage, simultaneously sending a lower-resolution version and reduced number of images to the MLS” if needed, thus eliminating the need to enter the photo twice.
When asked to define the differences between the two offerings — Compose and Bridge Listing Input — Tekin did not respond to Inman on the record.
GAMLS, which did not respond to Inman’s requests for comment, runs on Black Knight’s Paragon MLS and CoreLogic’s Trestle dashboard. FMLS uses CoreLogic’s Matrix multiple listing platform. Bridge Listing Input works with systems from both vendors, confirmed Zillow Group’s VP of communications Katie Curnutte.
In June, Bridge Interactive and Black Knight formed an alliance to integrate Bridge’s data management tools into Paragon MLS.
“We are collaborating with Bridge Interactive because it has a proven track record of industry innovation and we know its new solution will provide added efficiency for brokers and agents,” said FMLS president Cantey Davis in a press release.
Editor’s note: An earlier version of this story incorrectly stated that FMLS had not responded to multiple requests for comment, and that FMLS ran on Black Knight’s Paragon MLS system. This story has been updated with comments from FMLS that were sent to Inman via email before publication.
