Bethesda, Md.-based CoStar Group Inc. will launch CoStar Connect, an online system that allows real estate firms to market property listings on their own Web sites, at the beginning of 2001. CoStar Connect will allow users to license information and images from CoStar's database, which is composed of information on 800,000 properties and 1 million tenants and 915,000 digital images, all collected by the company's 700 researchers. CoStar Connect also will offer new capabilities to customers' Web sites such as search engines, tailored space queries, space calculators, mapping and iPIX virtual tours.

"Commercial real estate firms need the ability to market their properties or listing through their corporate Websites," says Mark Klionsky, senior vice president and product manager for CoStar Connect. "However, few brokerage firms or property owners have the capital or time required to design software, collect content or track down brokers to update their listings on their Web site on a timely basis."