Traditional agents still firmly control the M.L.S., which allows all participating brokers, including Redfin, to view almost every home for sale in a particular area, even those being offered through competitors' agencies.
That finding opens the way for competitors to harry the conglomerate in future through conventional competition agencies.
In contrast, notable differences in the influence of consumers, business customers, competitors, rating agencies, trade associations and insurance stakeholders can be observed.
Until the so-called model wars of the late 1970s and 1980s, when agencies proliferated and upstarts like Elite Model Management and Click Models emerged as powerful competitors, "The Ford agency was just the iconic name of modeling," said the actress Kim Basinger, who signed with Ford in 1971.
Last year, Creative Artists told its clients that Mr. Ovitz was a direct competitor, and that the agency would no longer represent anyone who also used Artists Management.
SIR MARTIN SORRELL, the acquisitive chief executive of the WPP Group, is stepping up his already aggressive push to win control of a smaller competitor, the troubled British agency company Cordiant Communications Group.
The changes are being undone, at least for now, because of a legal battle between the principal Coca-Cola competitor, PepsiCo, and the agency that was to gain the Dasani and Powerade assignments, the Foote, Cone & Belding unit of the FCB Group, which is owned by the Interpublic Group of Companies.
Florida, home to the NASA Kennedy Space Center and one of Texas' top competitors, created a state agency, Space Florida, in 2006 to promote space-related business.
What is more, the agency's competitors have been spreading stories that Mr. Riney is trying to sell his shop and that his own time is dominated by work creating advertising for the General Motors Corporation's forthcoming Saturn automobile.
Competitors such as Itraffic, Agency.com and AdKnowledge will likely follow suit with similar offerings.
The Society Management has positioned itself as a competitor to the major agencies in New York and already boasts an impressive roster of models.
