Contents ...
Gaining Web Insight -- CB Richard Ellis' Novel Tastes

CB Richard Ellis' Hit Parade... Did you know that you can find out which books CB employees (or any other large organization) have recently bought at Amazon.com? Here are CB's top 5 books as of Nov 5, 1999 (1 non-fiction, 4 novels):

1. Business @ the Speed of Thought (Bill Gates riffs)
2. Left Behind (mysterious disappearances, UFOs)
3. A Man in Full (real estate developer saga)
4. Memoirs of a Geisha (Japanese social canvas)
5. Hannibal (yep, Cannibal Lecter returns)

Amazon posts this information in its Purchase Circles area. From Amazon's home page, scroll down the left-hand column, click Purchase Circles under Community, then Companies, then the letter C and, finally, click CB Richard Ellis, which is listed alphabetically. I poked around looking for C&W, G&E, Insignia/ESG and Trammell Crow, but they didn't show up. Looks like CB is the only real estate firm with 200 registered users, Amazon's minimum required for a Purchase Circle.

Who said real estate professionals are all work and no play? This list further underscores the point that the line between our business and personal lives is blurring. In fact, the peak hours for e-shopping are while people are at work -- between noon on the East Coast and noon on the West Coast! ... The second point is that it's easy to track how people use your web site. That's the beauty of the web. What pages are they viewing? How much time are they spending there? Are your competitors viewing your site? All of that information is available by analyzing your web server log file and database.

PikeNet 2000 ... Don't miss Pike's Picks, 9 hot companies that will demo their new web sites and services (to be announced in January). ... Check out the preliminary program for PikeNet 2000, "Commercial Real Estate Internet Strategies" -- Apr 5-7, 2000, in San Francisco. There's a link at the top of the home page or click www.pikenet.com/pikenet2000. ... You'll enjoy meeting the leading Internet players -- maybe even your new dot.com partner!

NewsFlash... If you haven't already heard, CoStar Group announced last Thursday, Nov 4, that it had reached an agreement to acquire COMPS.COM for $102 million ($7.50 per share), thus combining the two largest publicly-traded real estate information companies.

--Peter