1. WEB SUCCESS. Stiles & Riabokobylko publishes one of Russia’s best web sites. Recently Sergey Riabokobylko wrote that he had added an Industrial/Warehouse Market profile for the Moscow region with "a complete overview of the terms and trends in this developing market sector. This report helped us win an exclusive contract to represent Nestle Foods LLC in the acquisition of their new 250,000 square foot warehouse/distribution facility in the Moscow region."

2. NEW AND NOTABLE. AEP (American Electric Power) features very detailed information on buildings, sites and communities in IN, KY, MI, OH, TN, VA and WV; registration is required.......Ostendorf-Morris offers commercial real estate services throughout Ohio……. Société immobilière Métivier & Associés provides management from services in Montreal, Quebec, Canada.

Lee & Associates, with offices in CA, NV and AZ has re-tooled its web site with an attractive new interface…….EquiMark Properties, which offers multi-family brokerage and counseling services in Salt Lake City, UT, sports a new graphical look……. Advantage Realty provides commercial and industrial services in the Greater Danbury CT.

3. UH-OH BIG TIME. Dow, Jones & Co. and Aegon USA Inc. announced on Monday, August 11, 1997, that they were "significantly streamlining" the operations of their Teleres joint venture and conducting a strategic review of Teleres’ future. The majority of the 68 employees of Teleres, including the venture’s senior managers, were laid off effective "immediately." It is unclear how much of its existing business will continue.

According to Inman News, Teleres had spent about $10 million to redesign their system for the web. From my outsider’s viewpoint, it seemed that Teleres never matched its business model with the way that real estate professionals actually do business. As I’ve emphasized in my last two Dispatches, the web is ultimately about connecting people to each other. Perhaps Teleres emphasized too much the value of pure information "to make better decisions" and not enough on how people collectively could access and use that information.

4. DEMOGRAPHIC INFORMATION-III. Following up my previous two Dispatches, this week I’ll mention two terrific new services for demographic information. The first is NAIS, New America Information Services, which is part of New America. NAIS offers site modeling, site analysis, Z-Score ranking and competition mapping along with standard demographic, business and Microvision maps and reports. NAIS also offers demographic software from Equifax National Decision Systems, called Infomark Express, for analyzing MSAs. Prices are available for all these reports which can be faxed or sent via overnight delivery. Go to the PikeNet Knowledge Base for step-by-step introductions…….

SBP On-Line is a fantastic new service from the Survey of Buying Power which has provided market analysis and site location applications for 65 years. Using the MapGuide plug-in (which should be easy to install), SBP On-Line enables you to drill down from a map of the U.S. all the way to the Block Group Level and retrieve hundreds of demographic variables. You can even do ring studies or draw your own polygons. For a cost of $595 per year, any real estate professional can acquire instant demographic reports that previously would have been very expensive and time consuming. Don’t miss it. And you’ll find step-by-step instructions in the PikeNet Knowledge Base.

5. KNOWLEDGE BASE: FINDING ZIP CODES. If you know the address, it’s easy to find the ZIP Code using the U.S. Postal Service web site. Check out the instructions in the PikeNet Knowledge Base.

6. ENHANCE YOUR LINK. In July, almost 11,000 visitors came to PikeNet and spent an average of 9 minutes. To increase the chances that PikeNet visitors will go to your site, enhance your link. Enhanced Links are shown in bold and moved to the top of the page above unenhanced links. And Enhanced Links can be listed in multiple categories, e.g., office and retail, or broker specialties. For complete details, click "Enhance a Link" at the top of the home page.

For an example, check out Trerice Tosto serving 3 markets in Michigan (Detroit, Grand Rapids and Southfield) and offering services in 5 Categories (Broker-Office, Broker-Flex/Industrial, Appraisal, Property Management and Listing Service (their public database includes much of the market). Do a Market Search and you’ll see their link in bold at the top of each "hit list."

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--Peter Pike