CB Richard Ellis Generates E-Brochures Automatically

The Search for Marketing Efficiencies... It's no surprise that, post September 11, many companies are struggling to reprioritize Internet initiatives. "The focus is now on cutting costs and bolstering sales rather than responding to fears that someone with a new 'business model' and some venture capital could topple the existing order." (New York Times, Nov 5, 2001) I thought of this quote after hearing John Frager, SVP of Web Services at CB RichardEllis, describe CB's practical new service integrating LoopNet listings and CB's personal pages.

"Updating listing information used to be an incredibly time-consuming process -- notifying a local researcher; personally contacting Costar, LoopNet, and other e-listing services; creating printed materials; converting those to a PDF file; and contacting your local CB office 'publisher' to upload it to your personal web page. ... Now, listing information on your personal web pages is automatically and instantly updated every time you make a change to your properties in the LoopNet database (CBRe-properties).

"We've designed a program that automatically accesses the LoopNet (CBRe-properties) database, and displays teams' or professionals' listings in summary form on their personal 'Available Properties' pages. From this summary you can drill down to see a full e-brochure of the property on LoopNet." ... Want to see an example? Frager recommends checking out the Available Properties tab at John Marolds's personal site.

--Peter Pike