Former Roost CTO joins Market Leader

Alex Lange, formerly chief technology officer at real estate technology company Roost, is now CTO at online marketing and technology company Market Leader, Market Leader announced today.

Lange co-founded Roost in 2007 and, prior to that, was vice president of information technology and chief architect at Art.com. Chris Henley, formerly executive producer at Social Gaming Network, has replaced Lange as Roost’s CTO.

At Market Leader, Lange will head the company’s technology and product teams.

"We’re excited to have a proven real estate technology leader like Alex join our team," said Ian Morris, Market Leader’s CEO, in a statement. "His deep technology experience and real estate domain expertise will be invaluable as we extend our category leadership."

Earlier this month, Roost switched its entire business model from property search to focus on social media tools. Henley’s hiring was part of the transition, according to Roost CEO Alex Chang.

In a separate announcement, Roost has launched a contest for users who try its free Social Real Estate Toolkit.

The toolkit includes a Facebook tab as well as a publishing tool, Roost Publisher, released at the end of August. In order to enter the contest, users simply click on the tab for this newest publishing component, find the thumbnail-sized egg on the page, and click on it for an automatic entry.

Each time users come back to the toolkit — with a limit of five times per day — they’ll have the opportunity to submit another egg.

"We’re committed to helping Realtors get word-of-mouth business out of social media. At the same time, we want to introduce a little fun into the equation and make it more engaging to do the things we believe are good for you," said Derek Overbey, Roost’s senior director of marketing and social media.

The company encourages users to use Roost Publisher to schedule Facebook wall posts to their personal profile or business page, though that is not required for contest entry.

The contest closes on Oct. 22. One randomly chosen winner will receive $2,300 in productivity tools: a custom Facebook Welcome Tab, two hours of one-on-one coaching from a Roost social media expert, a DocuSign account for one year, an Altos Research Pro account for one year, and a Sony Cyber-shot DSC-HX5V digital camera.