1. Headline... "Whittier Partners Group: Content and Technology." From the opening page with its moving banner, you know that Boston-based Whittier Partners has set out to develop a site that is fun and provides good value. *Click the Headline at PikeNet.*

2. New and Notable... Colliers Bennet & Kahnweiler provides industrial and office leasing services in Chicago, Denver and El Paso. CB Richard Ellis--The Boulos Company, which covers the state of Maine from Portland, offers dozens of listings with pictures. NAI Olympia Partners, based in Indianapolis, provides listing information and pictures and resumes of its staff. King Sturge, which covers the United Kingdom, has completed its attractive site with a powerful listings search engine. Visual Real Estate Database (ViRED) has developed an excellent listing service for Colorado which creates wonderful maps on the fly. CCIMNet has opened its new listing service featuring a very flexible search engine and attractive information sheets on each property.

REJI (Real Estate Journal Interactive) provides a wide range of resources for professionals in the Mid-Atlantic states. The Parkway Company, which acquires office buildings in the Southeast and Midwest, has put up a very attractive site. Maverick Management, which owns properties in New York and New Jersey, offers visitors a "virtual" tour through a sequence of images. Black's Guide has put its directory of professional services online, but not its building information. NAIOP has created an interesting site, but with limited access to the public. *Find these sites by entering a complete or partial word in the text search box on the home page.*

3. Advertising Banners... For $250 per month you can place a banner at PikeNet which will be seen 3,000 to 5,000 times. At each impression the viewer is one click away from visiting your site and learning more about your services. According to one advertiser, "It works. I received a call from a major bank." Market Areas cost $25, $50 or $100.

4. PikeNet Home Page... After a month of design work, we have implemented two significant changes. First, the home page features a beautiful, new graphic image and layout thanks to the firm that has developed the PikeNet site, Internet Business Solutions in Mountain View, California. Bravo. Looks great in Netscape 2.0, Microsoft 2.0 or AOL 3.0. Second, you can now go directly to a site from a Hit List, or read my Review. The choice is yours. This means that you can zip in and out quickly to evaluate sites without having to re-read a review which you may already have read.

5. Keywords... We are now adding keywords to site reviews. This will make the Text Search box on the home page even more useful. For example, if you have expertise in clean rooms or microwave antennas, let me know so that I can add it as a keyword to your review. Then you'll be found if a visitor searches for that word on our home page.

6. Subscribing and Canceling... If you do not want to receive this Dispatch, please reply with "cancel" in the Message field to remove your name. If you know a person who would like to be added to this list, please send me an e-mail with the word "subscribe." Please include your name and company.

-- Peter Pike