1. REITS--Are We Communicating? ..... If the web is all about communications, how effective are some of the larger office and industrial REITs? To find out, I visited three: Equity Office, Crescent Real Estate Equities Company and Security Capital Industrial Trust web sites. With a combined market capitalization of over $12 billion, these REITs control millions of square feet of commercial space, but they sure don’t seem to be doing much communicating over the Internet.

You’ll only find the names of two real people at Equity Office—a media contact and an analyst contact—with two telephone numbers, but no e-mail addresses. There is a feedback form with a generic e-mail address. Hmm. … At Crescent you’ll find one name, an e-mail address and phone number right on the home page. But that’s it. Plus Crescent makes you register (?) to look at publicly available SEC filings. … And at Security Capital you’ll find just an e-mail address, physical address and phone number—no real names here. … Prediction: a year from today, look for these sites to be filled with contact information.

2. Web Success--Starboard's Site Produces Lease. .... Starboard Commercial in San Francisco launched its web site in 1995. The site has produced a growing number of transactions—most recently a 10,000 sf lease to Digital Courier Technologies, Inc. As Susan Stoll Valenta describes the process, "DCTI said that since they didn’t have time to drive the neighborhoods, they decided to see what they could learn about leasing office space from the web. They hadn’t heard of Starboard or of me, but they drove by the space they liked at Fremont and called me after getting the details on our page… Although we put offers in on other spaces, the fact that the tenant had educated themselves from our page about the building they wanted and about the market conditions made the deal that much easier and faster." ... This is why, in the future, property owners will require web visibility for their listings. … … Do you have your own Web Success? … Send me e-mail.

3. New and Notable. ... The Consortium, Inc., provides commercial real estate services in Dallas, TX. … The Summit Realty Group Commercial offers real estate services in Indianapolis, IN. … The Gem Real Estate Group provides appraisal, consulting and litigation valuation advisory services in Dayton, OH. ... Parallel Capital Corporation is a direct commercial real estate and multifamily mortgage lender with offices in New York and across the country. … Based in Columbia, SC, the O. Marshall Dodds Company provides professional consultation and valuation services. … Creditreports.com Online offers individual and business credit reports for $25-35 each.

4. PikeNet Discussion Forum. ..... On Monday, I launched the PikeNet Discussion Forum. … You’ll see that I’ve "seeded" it with four categories (Corporate Real Estate, Financial Research, Mapping and Market Research) and some typical questions that I’ve been asked. … You can add as many subjects as you like within these categories, but let me know if you would like to add a whole new category. … For the next few months I’ll mention interesting threads in the Discussion Forum, so post your comments and questions. … I’ll make sure that they get some attention! … Click the Discussion Forum Channel or use the link below:

http://www.pikenet.com/cgi-bin/webc/pikenet/talk/dg_main.html

5. Knowledge Base--Company Profiles from Yahoo. ..... Yahoo! Finance provides company profiles on over 8,000 public companies, including "contact information, business summaries, officer and employee information, sector and industry classifications, business and earnings announcement summaries, and financial statistics and ratios." … For step-by-step instructions, go to the PikeNet Knowledge Base, select the "Financial Research" section and click the last question. … Or use the link below.

http://www.pikenet.com/pike?func=showPublicPage&page= questions/question_financial

6. Promote Your Company at PikeNet. ...... For $500 you can be a Featured Site for six months, which means that your URL is one click away from the PikeNet home page. … Or for $500, you can sponsor a PikeNet Dispatch, sending your URL to almost 5,000 professionals. … Or for $1,000, you can display your banner more than 6,000 times over a four to six-month period. … For complete details on how PikeNet can help market your service or product, click "Media Kit" at the bottom of the home page.

http://www.pikenet.com/advertising/advertising.html

7. Subscribing. .....If you would like to subscribe to this free Dispatch, send e-mail with the word "subscribe" in the title to Peter Pike . Please include your name and your company name in the body of the message.

-- Peter Pike