Content
1. Featured Site
2. New and Notable
3. Web Success
4. PikeNet Changes
5. Web Statistic: Newspapers
6. Subscribing and Canceling

1. Featured Site... MapBlast enables you to create and customize maps almost instantaneously. Once you've created a map, you can zoom in or out. Or change the label to get the look just right. When complete, you will save the URL to "your map" which is now located at Vicinity Corporation. You can then "send" the map by e-mail or post it at your site by cutting and pasting the URL. Here's a demonstration. In a couple of minutes I created a map showing how close PikeNet is to San Francisco ("virtually" 15 miles away). You'll find the map by clicking "About PikeNet" on the home page. Or, if you prefer, at the very end of this Dispatch, I've posted the map's URL (see Note 1). Just copy and paste it into the address box of your browser. Hit return and it will pop up! To visit MapBlast and create your own map, click the MapBlast hyperlink at the bottom of the PikeNet home page.

2. New and Notable... Landauer Associates is now online with a description of services offered and some research. Equitable Real Estate Management has put up an introductory site outlining their services. RealPage, which has created many real estate sites, including NAREIT, did both the Landauer and Equitable sites. Strutt & Parker is an international firm of chartered surveyors which offers excellent research on the UK market. The Pacific Rim Real Estate Society serves as a good meeting place for practitioners in this part of the world.

REA (Real Estate Assistant) is one of the most widely used personal information managers in the real estate industry, including many professionals at companies like CB Commercial, Grubb & Ellis and Cushman & Wakefield. Database America provides a terrific introduction to direct marketing. Within minutes I generated a list of over 500 attorneys within a particular San Francisco ZIP Code. After generating a list, you'll see a sample of it and then be asked for your credit card to order electronically. MapDraw addresses the perennial problem of how to draw a plot plan using a metes and bounds description.

Atlantic Investments, a development firm based in St. Petersberg has put up Russia's best site. Shackled by over regulation? Looking for greener pastures? "Rental returns on investment apartments…are in the region of 25-30% per annum plus the asset values…would appreciate significantly." If that's not good enough, check out investment opportunities in the Ukraine, where monthly office rents average $7 per square foot per month. *Find the above sites by entering a complete or partial word in the text search box on the PikeNet home page.*

3. Web Success... Gregory Laycock, a Grubb & Ellis investment broker, sold a $900,000 apartment listing to a client who first responded to a web advertisement by sending e-mail to indicate interest. Read the full story in Dupre & Scott's Apartment Advisor. Click the hyperlinks on the PikeNet home page.

4. PikeNet Changes... New Market Toolkit for Atlanta, and check out the excellent market commentary from Jamison Research. New PikeNet home page. After hours of html coding (is today really Labor Day?), I completely rebuilt it. Many of PikeNet's features now are much more visible and accessible.

5. Web Statistic: Newspapers... If you can't fight them, join'em. And that's what newspapers are doing to avoid losing customers to the Internet. But it's not cheap. According to E-Land "With start-up costs averaging $500,000, and additional staff of between seven to twelve workers to maintain online service, plus expanding reporters' duties, newspapers are taking online commerce and communication seriously." (www.e-land.com)

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.

Note 1: URL for the PikeNet map follows: http://www.vicinity.com/cgi- bin/webmap?Context=%2d122%2e5606%2c37%2e9618%2c1000000% 2c0%2c0&Icon= crosshair1%2cPikeNet%2d%2dHit%20Me%20Please% 2c%2d122%2e560620%2c37%2e961850 &Template=mapblast

--Peter Pike /