The Information Age Shopping Center World and all of the Intertec real estate publications made the connection to the Internet several years ago, and that connection has had a few incarnations.
We made our foray onto World Wide Web before many of you did in the form of a subscriber-only bulletin board, listing potential transaction information.
It was a good first try. It made a connection; we got our feet wet.
The next step was a Web site. In words and pictures, the site told visitors who we were, what we did, and how to contact us. It was a rather static presentation; not much changed on daily, weekly or even monthly basis.
It was a good second try. It made another connection; we had a starting point.
But you should see www.internetreview.com now. From daily news to weekly Web site reviews to the full text of the magazines, the site is a terrific resource and a good companion to our printed publications.
Before you all think I'm going to break my arm if I continue to pat myself on the back, you should know that I have had little influence over the site or its content. Kelly Angell, our online editor, has embraced the project and established its high standard.
Each business day, Kelly prepares news from all sectors of commercial real estate for the site. Weekly, she reviews commercial real estate Web sites and provides a link to those sites.
Regularly, Kelly interviews a leading real estate professional for the exclusive "publication" on our Web site. The profiles are topical, intelligent, and presented in an engaging question-and-answer format.
And monthly, the full text -- and a couple photographs and other graphics -- from the current issue of Shopping Center World (as well as National Real Estate Investor and Midwest Real Estate News) is put online and indexed.
When our revamped site first appeared about year ago, it was awarded a five-star rating from PikeNet, a directory of commercial real estate sites on the World Wide Web. At that time, the site was heralded as a vast resource on commercial real estate. However, with the addition of daily news, original interviews and the Web site reviews, it is much more than that now.
As more companies are providing desktop access to the Internet, I encourage you to visit our site. And since the news changes daily, come back as often as you like, and I think you are going to like it a lot.