【正文】 The Real Estate Industry and the World Wide Web: Changing Technology, Changing Location The Inter, in its Web based graphics version, has captured the imagination of both consumers and businesses. Its convenience, speed, low cost and versatility are being exploited on a daily basis in everchanging ways. Together with its capacity to transform existing businesses, promote new businesses and facilitate exchange of information and data, its other striking attribute has been the speed with which this new technology has spread throughout the global economy. The number of puter hosts grew by more than tenfold between 1995 and early 1999. The number of Web sites increased almost 100fold, to over two million, between 1995 and y the year 2020, there will be approximately 400500 million Inter users in the world, and the total number of Web sites will exceed five million. This new technology has the potential for affecting the real estate industry directly and indirectly. Directly, it may bee a tool that allows a real estate business to expand its information and sales work. Indirectly, it may change the location equation where and how firms do business which in turn will affect the role of firms involved in real estate development, investment and transactions. Measuring the Spread of the Web There are few reliable published statistics on Inter or Web use, and statistics reported by different analysts are often inconsistent. Our discussion of the Web and real estate is based on limited information from surveys and on examination of Web sites rather than on more prehensive data. We have built our overview of the role of the World Wide Web and real estate by examining a variety of sources(including trade publications, existing Web sites, and our own survey of selected real estate firms) From Email to Emerce Before the advent of the World Wide Web, the Inter existed mostly for the purposes of , data transfers, newsgroups and bulletin boards, and its reach was limited primarily to the academic and the defense munity. The technology itself was not particularly userfriendly, the work speed was not very high, the medium was limited to text and data, and accessing information was cumbersome and timeconsuming. The browser technology greatly simplified usage, enabled multimedia information, and created interactive possibilities. The technology brought together TV entertainment, library information, news bulletins, munication and data in one desktop machine. Although initially the greatest patrons of the Inter were the academic munity, the mercial sector quickly caught on to the potential of the Web. The private sector saw in the Web an opportunity to widen its marketing reach, lower costs of information dissemination, improve customer relations, and ultimately to conduct sales. Existing private sector Web sites can be roughly categorized into three types, as summarized. The most basic level is for simple information dissemination. The firm registers a Web site and develops a page giving basic pany information. The second stage is an expansion of information, marketing goods and services or providing other customer information. The third stage is the addition of transactions to the activities possible on the Web site. Most business sites at present are in Stage 2. The use of the World Wide Web for detailed information dissemination, and marketing has had several advantages. For the firm, marketing, information dissemination and customer services on the Web can be monitored and analyzed with some details unavailable from conventional methods of marketing using other media. Inter tools can now provide a firm with data on who accessed the site, which pages were visited most, heavily, from where and for how long. This information contributes to improved measures of the results of promotional efforts. The promotional costs associated with the Inter have also been very low. For example, in direct mail marketing, to send a onepage color brochure to 5,000 random addresses will cost upwards of $2,500. The cost of setting up a Web site could be onetenth of this amount or less (although tracking and analysis can quickly add to the cost)?Many different sectors, including real estate, have found the Inter to be both efficient and costeffective as a marketing device. The next logical step a fullfledged office/store on the Web with transaction capability and merce on the Inter is now being attempted in varying degrees depending on the firm39。s Web pages, linking customers and clients to related Web resources. Unlike retail sectors, such as books and puter hardware, the Web as yet has not bee a threat to the middle man role of many real estate firms. Instead, it is more likely to be used as a means of expanding services offered or locations served. However, in the long term, the Web and relate