ZoomProspector.com Wins Second Place in U.S. Commerce Department’s “Business Apps Challenge”

The U.S. Commerce Department announced today that ZoomProspector.com has won second prize prize in the nationwide Commerce Business Apps Challenge. The high-profile judging panel that selected ZoomProspector.com included Vint Cerf, Chief Internet Evangelist at Google; Vivek Kundura, VP at Salesforce.com; Sheryl Sandberg, Chief Operating Officer at Facebook; Tim O’Reilly, CEO of O’Reilly Media; John Bryson, Secretary of Commerce’ and Steven Van Roekel, CIO of the United States. The Department stated in its announcement that ZoomProspector.com “provides a way for new and expanding businesses to find, compare and deeply analyze communities and available properties nationwide. This tool will be valuable for American companies looking to expand their operations inside the United States or companies choosing to bring jobs back from overseas.”

Read the Commerce Department’s full announcement here.

Read the press release here.

Entrepreneur Magazine spotlighted ZoomProspector.com in a piece titled “Free Market-Research Tools — A Sampler,” informing its readers that small businesses can tap a variety of free resources for insights about customers, competitors and trends. ZoomProspector was one of eight resources listed, along with providers like Moody’s Analytics, the Securities and Exchange Commission, and the U.S. Census Bureau. Entrepreneur wrote of ZoomProspector, “this online tool helps companies choose the best locations for their facilities based on market data provided by a network of communities. Answer questions about your market, type of business and real estate needs, and ZoomProspector will provide a list of locations it deems best for you.”

The first-ever Facebook applications created exclusively for economic development officially launched today.  The free apps were created by GIS Planning Inc. to reach this exploding global network of more than 500 million people and help the expanding businesses that use Facebook get the community and property information that they need.

Specifically, GIS Planning is offering two apps that help businesses visiting the Facebook pages of economic development organizations.

1. Property Search – Allows visitors to quickly search for available retail, office and industrial properties, and see “featured” properties.
2. Demographic Data – Provides immediate access to customized current data from a specific region or state, including population, labor force, entrepreneurship/innovation statistics and taxes.

GIS Planning, Inc. received an Excellence in Economic Development Award for their ZoomProspector.com website in the category of New Media for communities with populations of greater than 500,000 from the International Economic Development Council (IEDC).  The honor was presented at an awards ceremony on Tuesday, September 28 during the IEDC Annual Conference, September 26-29 in Columbus, Ohio.

“We recognize GIS Planning, Inc. for providing successful strategies to promote new paradigms in economic development in this period of global recovery,” said William Best, IEDC chair. “Our awards honor organizations and individuals for their efforts in creating positive change in communities. GIS Planning, Inc. is showing that they are at the forefront of the economic development profession and are using innovative and effective practices that can be replicated in other communities.”

Forbes has once again turned to ZoomProspector for help in evaluating cities, this time to help determine “America’s Most Innovative Cities.” Forbes used data from ZoomProspector on the concentrations of creative professionals in the largest cities.

“For [Forbes'] ranking we started with the 100 largest metropolitan statistical areas in the U.S. and used data from the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office to determine number of patents per capita. Then we combined it with venture capital investment per capita from the National Venture Capital Association, along with those cities’ ratios of high-tech, science and ‘creative’ jobs from ZoomProspector.com and Payscale.com.”

Here is the complete list of the Most Innovative Cities in America in ranked order:

1. San Jose, CA
2. Austin, TX
3. Raleigh, NC
4. San Francisco, CA
5. Seattle, WA
6. San Diego, CA
7. Madison, WI
8. Boston, MA
9. Provo, UT
10. Portland, OR
11. Palm Bay, FL
12. Minneapolis, MN
13. Washington, DC
14. Rochester, NY
15. Albany, NY
16. Boise, ID
17. Oxnard, CA
18. Denver, CO
19. Tucson, AZ
20. Bridgeport, CT

Bloomberg BusinessWeek partnered with ZoomProspector.com to identify the top 10 cities for starting a new business.

“ZoomProspector.com weighed a total of 11 factors, including the number of startups, quality of the workforce, number of patents, universities, and venture capital to determine the best place to build the next Apple or Google.”

Here is the list in ranked order:

1. Boulder, CO
2. Boca Raton, FL
3. Santa Monica, CA
4. Bend, OR
5. Irvine, CA
6. Cambridge, MA
7. Bellevue, WA
8. Franklin, TN
9. San Francisco, CA
10. Rockville, MD

In its debut magazine under the Bloomberg BusinessWeek title since Bloomberg’s acquisition, the magazine outlined the unique selling points of each location for startups.  According to the article, “ZoomProspector.com, a business location Web site, says smaller cities have become the best places to start new companies.”

GIS Planning Inc. and Business Xpansion Journal magazine are partnering to provide the readers of Business Xpansion Journal with access to GIS Planning’s ZoomProspector.com nation-wide database of local communities, directly within the Business Xpansion Journal website.

GIS Planning, Inc. and Business Facilities magazine are joining forces to provide the readers of Business Facilities magazine with direct access to GIS Planning’s ZoomProspector.com service, a nation-wide searchable database of local communities. Business Facilities readers can now instantly search tens of thousands of communities and available properties on ZoomProspector.com, directly from the magazine’s website.

GIS Planning Inc. and Site Selection magazine have partnered to provide Site Selection magazine readers with access to GIS Planning’s ZoomProspector.com searchable database of local communities directly from Site Selection’s official data website, DevelopmentAlliance.com.

The New York Times today says that using ZoomProspector is one of “The basics of starting a business.”  The article explains start-up fundamentals including the business plan, proving the concept, raising capital, and legal structure.  According to the article:

“Along with doing Google searches, you should also check out trade publications and association Web sites.  If your business is in retail, look at ZoomProspector, which provides helpful information on local economic trends (population, income and demographics). Visit Yelp.com and see how many competing retail outlets you’ll be facing. Is the market too crowded?”

Corporate real estate magazine Business Xpansion Journal article “Business Location Intelligence For Free” discusses how “Choosing the ideal location for your business is only possible with the right business intelligence” and how free information on the Internet can be used for business site selection.  Here is an excerpt:

“One tool, ZoomProspector.com, is a one-stop site selection resource that gives a business precisely the information necessary to find the perfect location anywhere in the United States. Users find communities that match their needs, as well as commercial real estate that meets their detailed specifications and strategic goals.”

Site Selection magazine’s July article “The Value of Location-Intelligence” discusses how site selection is not really about selecting a property as much as it is a process of selecting the right community.  The article explains how professional corporate site selection consultants select a location for a business and how online tools like web-based GIS used by economic development organizations and ZoomProspector.com provide extensive data to find the best business location. 

“ZoomProspector.com now enables businesses of all sizes to find the optimal location to start-up, expand, or relocate…  every business searching for a new location can perform a free, fast, yet in-depth search for the best location based on the site selection characteristics that matter most to their unique needs, including demographic, business, labor force, geographic, transportation, incentive, economic, and industry qualities combined with real estate search.”

Forbes today quoted ZoomProspector Co-Founder and CEO Anatalio Ubalde in an article entitled “Top College Towns for Jobs.” The article details that while the job market has shrunk across much of the United States over the last year, the article looked at 62 college towns that have experienced job growth over that same period. Mr. Ubalde was quoted as saying:

“Universities provide the future educated labor force and are centers of innovation, which creates an ideal ecosystem for start-ups… Research universities spin off academic innovations into commercial enterprises.”

This is the third time that ZoomProspector has been involved in Forbes articles this year, after “America’s Fastest Changing Cities” and “America’s Top 25 Towns to Live Well.” Forbes has also recently integrated a ZoomProspector-powered interactive map of the US economy onto its website.

News outlets nationwide have reported and redistributed the Forbes’ list of “America’s Top 25 Towns to Live Well” which was based on data and research from ZoomProspector. Here are some of the publications that have written about the list so far:

• AOL Real Estate: “Most Livable Towns“
• National Association of Realtors: “Top 10 U.S. Towns for Living Well“
• Sacramento Bee: “Davis ranks 19th on top 25 towns to live well“
• Baltimore Sun: “Columbia named top town for entrepreneurs“
• Mountain View Voice: “Forbes calls Mountain View best town in the Bay Area for living well“
• Fort Bend Now: “Sugar Land Again Named One Of The Nation’s Top Cities“
• Washington City Paper: “The Washington D.C.-Area’s Best Towns to Live Well In“
• Maryland Real Estate News: “Columbia ranks 7th among America’s Top 25 Towns to Live Well“
• The Daily Northwestern: “Evanston ranks 18th in Forbes’ list of towns“
• GIS User: “America’s Top 25 Towns To Live Well mapped with ZoomProspector“

Forbes.com, one of the world’s leading business media companies, has integrated a ZoomProspector powered online map into its website. The custom made and fully integrated map, which shows demographic densities across the United States using ZoomProspector.com’s patent-pending mapping technology, was built to help Forbes show their website visitors “Where Americans Are Living Well.” Pablo Monzon, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of ZoomProspector said that:

“Forbes wanted to show a map on their website, so instead of simply providing them with a static image, we offered to integrate our interactive heat maps into their site. We’ve done seamless integrations for a variety of websites, including many economic development websites. Keeping the look and feel of the original website is very important to clients and partners, and we have the expertise to do it.”

Forbes, one of the world’s leading business media companies, today released its list of the best small cities to live, work and operate a business in an article entitled, “America’s Top 25 Towns To Live Well.” Forbes turned to ZoomProspector to research and rank the cities on the list by a variety of demographic, business, cultural and geographic variables that make the small cities on the list great places to live and work.

Forbes searched cities across the United States with populations of less than 100,000 people to compile the list. According to the article by Matt Woolsey:

“Characteristics like the number of museums, parks, bars and restaurants, and cultural institutions per capita were considered, as were factors indicative of a favorable business environment. These include patents, venture capital funding, sole-proprietorships, start-ups and small businesses per capita… When you have museums and sunshine, mountains, nice restaurants and a local economy with new companies starting up, it makes an otherwise slow economy far easier to deal with.”

ZoomProspector Co-CEO and Co-Founder Anatalio Ubalde was quoted in the article, saying:

“Many small and medium-sized cities have developed the business, demographic and lifestyle amenities of big cities. While smaller cities may not have the total number of quality employees and amenities of larger cities, on a per-capita basis, they are very competitive locations for businesses.”

In addition to the main article, Forbes also included a slideshow of all of the cities on the list. To see a list of the Top 25 Towns to Live Well in America, read the rest of the post. Read the rest of this entry »

David Kolman, a thought leader in the trucking industry, reviewed ZoomProspector in an article published today in Refrigerated Transporter entitled “Where o where should I locate my facility?” Here is an except:

“The key to finding the best location is to have good information upon which to make the decision. How’d you like to be able to do a lot of this “prospecting” without having to travel to visit multiple sites, and without having to deal with brokers? If you would, you might want to give ZoomProspector a try. It’s a free web-based service that provides demographic data on  thousands of communities across the US.”

In reaction to the BusinessWeek article “The Pros of Planting Startups in Smaller Cities” - which listed Ann Arbor as the best city in Michigan to startup and which used ZoomProspector data and research methodology to determine the list for the best cities for startups in each state - radio station 1290 WLBY in Ann Arbor interviewed ZoomProspector’s CEO and Co-Founder Anatalio Ubalde in an in-depth interview. The interview is now available as a podcast (the podcast is halfway down the page, under Wednesday April 1).

Mobile Electronics Magazine today recommended ZoomProspector.com to their readership in an article entitled “Web Tool Can Help Retailers Find Best Location for New Store,” saying ZoomProspector is a:

“search engine that allows business owners to look for a range of available properties, for example storefronts, industrial buildings and warehouses, in an area they’re interested in.”

Small Business Trends, today ran a feature on ZoomProspector as the top story on their homepage entitled “Startups and Sole Proprietors - How Does Your Area Rank?”

The article uses ZoomProspector’s Heat Map functionality to examine where startups and sole proprietors are located and concentrated throughout the USA, and according to the story:

“Does your area have a lot of sole proprietors — have you ever wondered?  And what about startups — will you find other startup entrepreneurs in your chosen city? Using the ZoomProspector website I ran some heat maps that show concentrations of sole proprietors and startups across the United States.  The results were surprising.”

Read the entire story here to see what conclusions the reporter came to from using ZoomProspector’s nationwide data.

Before fully launching to the public in October 2008, ZoomProspector.com released a beta version at the Web 2.0 Expo in April of last year as one of the standouts of the week. This year at the Expo, ZoomProspector successfully launched our new “Find Similar Communities” feature (read the Fortune and VentureBeat coverage), and ZoomProspector marketing staff attended the show, including our director of marketing, Chad Catacchio, who was interviewed along with other technology executives by CNET for a piece about how the economy affected this year’s Web 2.0 Expo:

VentureBeat, a popular business and technology news blog, today covered ZoomProspector’s new “Find Similar Communities” search feature in their article entitled “Take the guesswork out of expanding your business with new ZoomProspector tool.” Written by MG Siegler, the article says that:

“A lot of startups have to start small and focus their businesses on specific areas rather than do a national or worldwide roll out. But if that startup is having localized success in one region, how does it choose where to expand to next? The online business location service ZoomProspector has a new tool that should help with that decision… To test it out, I entered some factors I like about Ann Arbor, Michigan, and the result I got, with a 93 (out of 100) match, was Boulder, Colorado. That makes sense. Both are home to large state colleges and likely share similar characteristics as a result.”

Today at the Web 2.0 Expo in San Francisco, we are pleased to announce an exciting new ZoomProspector.com search feature called “Find Similar Communities”. This feature provides a new search option (Option #3 on our homepage) for businesses to use to match a familiar city to cities that have similar demographic and geographic characteristics. We have been using this feature internally for a few months to help reporters at Forbes, Fortune and BusinessWeek to deeply analyze and rank cities across the United States. As of today, with the release of the Fortune Small Business article “Picking the best places to launch a biz” (also available in the April print issue) we are releasing the tool for anyone to use.

Small businesses often know what they like about a city already, so we built this new tool to allow them to search for places in the USA that are a close match to places that they are already familiar with, already running a successful business, or would just like to compare how a city or county that you are interested in matches up with other cities.

The tool works like this. First, you enter any city or county in the United States into Option #3.

Read the rest of this entry »

Fortune Small Business announced ZoomProspector.com’s newest business location search feature in the print edition of its April issue. The two-page spread, entitled “Picking the best places to launch a biz” demonstrates how businesses can use ZoomProspector’s new “Find Similar Communities” search option to match a familiar city to cities that have similar demographic and geographic  characteristics.

“Small businesses often know what characteristics they like about their city, so we built this new tool to allow them to search for new places to expand in the USA that are a close match to places that they are already successful,” said Anatalio Ubalde, Co-CEO and Co-Founder of ZoomProspector.com. “Fortune Small Business Magazine is a leading publication for small businesses worldwide, so we’re pleased that the tremendous value ZoomProspector offers to small business owners will reach their readers.”

“ZoomProspector.com is a valuable resource for companies that are franchising because it’s easy to find new business markets that match the community characteristics of the places the company is already successful,” said Ubalde.

Quoted in the article is Sharon Chan, Executive Vice President of Laurus Construction:

“I’m able to figure out which communities to rule out and which to pursue. It’s almost like having a marketing company. You’re doing your own legwork, but it’s nice to have the data.”

News outlets around the county have been promoting their local city’s inclusion in BusinessWeek’s list of Best Small Cities for Startups featured in the article “The Pros of Planting Startups in Smaller Cities“. Here’s a quick list of the coverage so far:

• Irvine, CA - OC Metro “Irvine among top U.S. small cities to start a business” & OC Register “Irvine named the best place in California to start a business“
• White Plains, NY - Westchester.com “White Plains Named Best In NY For Starting A Business“
• Ann Arbor, MI - mlive.com “Ann Arbor chosen top Michigan city for small start-up companies” & 1290 WLBY Ann Arbor podcast
• Doral, FL - Miami Herald “Doral business climate praised“
• Boulder, CO - YourHub Boulder “Boulder named best city to start a biz“
• Ridgeland, MS - The Madison County Herald “City tops in state for new business”
  
• Franklin, TN - The Tennessean “Franklin among top 50 small cities to launch business”
• Portsmouth, NH - The Union Leader “Port City ranked No. 1 for new businesses” & Seacoast Online “Portsmouth named ‘best place to start a business“
• Kearney, NB - The Kearney Hub “BusinessWeek magazine: Kearney tops for startups“
• Sparks, NV - KTVN “BusinessWeek Names Sparks Top City in Nevada for Business Start-Ups” & “BusinessWeek Names Sparks as the Best City for Starting a Business in Nevada“
• Evanston, IL - Evanston Now “Evanston named best for start-ups“
• Tempe, AZ - The Arizona Republic “Tempe named a top city to start a new business” & “A few Tempe successes“
• South Portland, ME - Maine Business “How important is location?“
• Laramie, WY - “Laramie Best Place to Start a Business in Wyoming According to BusinessWeek“
• Providence, RI - “BusinessWeek Cites Providence as a “Best Small City” for Startups“
• Newark, DE - “UD makes Newark top spot in state for start-up companies“
• Columbia, MD - “We are Good for Business”
• Planetizen “Starting Up Small“
• Directions Magazine “Geography (and geographic thinking) in BusinessWeek“

We’ll continue to update this list as more reaction comes in.

The New York Daily News ran an article today entitled “A step-by-step guide to finding the right location for your business” in which they lay out effective ways for businesses to research and choose a location. The article cited ZoomProspector as a resource for businesses, saying:

“After developing a clear, detailed picture of your customer and setting boundaries based on your personal needs, the next step is to locate the specific communities that are right for your business. Large corporations hire consultants to do this detective work, but there are a number of free resources that small business owners can use. ZoomProspector.com has a tool that can help you match your business to the right community…”

BusinessWeek today announced its best mid-sized cities in each state for starting a business in the the article “The Pros of Planting Startups in Smaller Cities“. Using data and research from ZoomProspector, BusinessWeek determined each city using a number of variables that entrepreneurs need to consider when deciding where to locate their business. Click on the “Read the full article” below to see the full list with links to each city’s ZoomProspector profile page (the list is also available on BusinessWeek.com in this interactive slide show): Read the rest of this entry »

CFO Magazine, a publication of the Economist Group and the leading resource for CFOs worldwide, covered ZoomProspector in the Tech section of their March 2009 issue. The article, entitled “Zooming Market” starts off by saying “Looking for locations in all the wrong places? It’s a vexing problem when companies expand or consolidate, especially in unfamiliar markets.” According to the article, here’s how ZoomProspector helps to solve this problem:

“Users can view demographic data for any selected community, retrieve a ranked list of communities that most closely match places where a business already exists, or search for communities that match business-location requirements. Zoomprospector can even sift through these communities for patents issued, venture-capital businesses funded, average household expenditures, nearest interstates, and the presence of federal empowerment zones or Environmental Protection Agency Superfund sites.”

Quoted in the article is Ken Kaufman, CEO of CFOWise:

“My mind goes first and foremost to the hundreds of thousands of dollars lost by making wrong decisions when opening in new markets,” says Kaufman. “I wouldn’t say that Zoomprospector would always avoid that, but in 90 percent of cases it can help us identify problems before going in.” A happy prospect indeed.

Read the full article on CFO.com

Forbes, one of the world’s leading business media companies, featured ZoomProspector today in its article, “America’s Fastest-Changing Cities”.

Using data and analysis from ZoomProspector, as well as the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics, the Internal Revenue Service, the National Association of Realtors and the Census Department, Forbes listed ten cities that have recently seen dramatic demographic and economic changes. In addition to the article, Forbes also produced a slideshow of all of the cities on the list. Detailed data on all of the cities listed in the article are also available on here on ZoomProspector.

ZoomProspector Co-CEO and Co-Founder Anatalio Ubalde was quoted in the article as saying, “We are in financial distress, but the economic pain is not evenly distributed by geography. It doesn’t always come down to something as simple as the coast versus the Midwest. The numbers don’t always bear that out as much as people want simple economic explanations that are geographic.”

With demographic and geographic data on every city in the United States, ZoomProspector is a growing source of data for businesses, individuals and the media.

Planetizen, the most popular website for the planning community, today named ZoomProspector as one of its Top 10 Websites of 2009!  2009 is the fifth year that Planetizen has made a top 10 website list.  According to the awards page, “Our annual list of the 10 best planning, design, and development websites represents some of the top online resources for those interested in planning, design, and development.”

Tim Halbur, Managing Editor of Planetizen, said “The depth and functionality of ZoomProspector make it a great tool for anyone interested in uncovering the demographic and economic data of a location. We chose to recognize the site because it takes a new approach to economic development information, making it accessible to anyone.”

Planetizen also had this to say about ZoomProspector:

“Designed by planners, this tool enables users to look up data for any community based on a number of demographic criteria. Because the site gathers data from multiple sources, including those at the local level, ZoomProspector is able to boast more detailed, informative searches. Although intended for companies looking to expand to new properties, ZoomProspector is just as fun to tinker with, offering a new way to explore communities.”

Go here to learn more about the award criteria.

Entrepreneur Magazine today covered ZoomProspector in an article entitled “Find Your Perfect (Business) Match“. Here’s an excerpt:

“Entrepreneurs seeking guidance in locating their business can turn to the likes of ZoomProspector.com, which helps small businesses identify optimal locations based on a range of community and property characteristics.”

Commercial real estate news outlet Real Estate Finance & Investment covered ZoomProspector in an article entitled “Location Website Maps Out Data Enhancements”. Read the full article here (registration required).

ZoomProspector is currently featured in the January/February print edition of Inc. Magazine, which compares how ZoomProspector’s revolutionary new national site selection search engine is an evolutionary step for the 21th century of the methods that legendary entrepreneurs Ray Kroc and Sam Walton employed to grow two of the largest companies in the world. The full article is also online at Inc.com - “Real Estate: Educated work force? Check. Near the airport? Check.” Here’s an except:

“Legendary retailers Sam Walton and Ray Kroc used to hunt for real estate at 30,000 feet; they used private planes to survey the country for prime spots in which to open new stores. Now a new website, ZoomProspector, attempts to provide business owners a similar bird’s-eye view of the commercial landscape from their desk chairs.”

GlobeSt.com, which provides in-depth and breaking commercial real estate news, covered ZoomProspector in their article entiled “Web Tool Aims to Simplify Site Selection“. Here’s a couple of excepts:

“ZoomProspector promises to demystify the, arguably, confusing task of identifying the right location for a new, expanding or consolidating business. Although designed with small and mid-size business in mind, the website could potentially simplify life for commercial real estate professionals, at least those involved with site selection.”

“Think of it as the equivalent of putting together a giant jigsaw puzzle. Company executives–or the CRE pros they hire–have to piece together a myriad of facts, both obvious and obscure, to solve it. [ZoomProspector CEO Anatalio] Ubalde said ZoomProspector speeds the process.”

BusinessWeek Magazine today covered ZoomProspector in a story about how businesses find the best locations to help them succeed. Saying that ZoomProspector “offers free help” to businesses and that “choosing the right place can mean the difference between profitability and failure”, this article is another verification that businesses of any size need to deeply analyze locations through a number of demographic and geographic variables. ZoomProspector Co-Founder Anatalio Ubalde is also highly quoted in the article, saying ZoomProspector “offers small business owners access to the same information large companies use when they decide where to site new locations.” Read the full article here.

National Real Estate Investor Magazine reviewed ZoomProspector.com today, saying that ZoomProspector:

“enables anyone to identify communities that best match their expansion criteria”

ZoomProspector.com has strong ties to the commercial real estate community and the professionals that work in and around this vital industry, and as the article mentions we are always open to partnering with complimenatry organizations. If you are interested in working with ZoomProspector.com to highlight your available properties, learn more here or contact us directly. You can read the full article here.

The business reference and research company, JJHill, made ZoomProspector.com their Business Website of the Week this week, saying:

ZoomProspector highlights available research on places, but focuses just on those aspects most essential to business interests.

and:

This is a great tool for comparing U.S. places, whether your plans involve a new location or just getting to know your current one a little better.

Tom Taulli of AOL’s BloggingStocks covered ZoomProspector.com today in an articled entitled “Entrepreneur’s Journal: Thinking of starting a business? Check out ZoomProspector“. Taulli, a noted author on small business issues, notes:

“All in all, to succeed in the current economic environment, business owners need to do lots of homework. It’s essential. The good news is that ZoomProspector has made it much easier.”

GIS Planning Inc. announced a partnership with The International Economic Development Council at its (IEDC) Annual Conference in Atlanta today.  GIS Planning Inc. will use the International Economic Development Council as an important venue to educate people about its ZoomProspector Enterprise product and ZoomProspector.com service.

“GIS Planning Inc. is pleased to announce this new relationship with the International Economic Development Council.  IEDC is the largest economic development membership organization in the world with the best set of conferences, trainings and services.  Our hundreds of clients across the country from New York City to San Francisco can benefit from the services IEDC provides and we are pleased to recommend IEDC to them,” said Anatalio Ubalde, Co-founder and Co-CEO of GIS Planning Inc. and ZoomProspector.com.

Read the rest of this entry »

TIP Strategies today wrote a great review of ZoomProspector.com, saying that it “will help revolutionize the industry”, that we’ve “pulled off a coup” and that “ZoomProspector is also invaluable for economic development organizations and site selectors”. TIP Strategies is a privately held Austin-based economic development consulting firm committed to providing quality solutions for public and private-sector clients.

The response from the blogsphrere yesterday to ZoomProspector’s public launch was overwhelmingly positive. In addition to some of the most popular blogs in the world including TechCrunch, CNET, Mashable and VentureBeat (see previous posts below!), a number of other great blogs covered our launch as well. Read the rest of this entry »

Here is our coverage in The Washington Post.

CNET News, a part of broadcast company CBS, covered ZoomProspector’s launch today! Here’s an excerpt from the article, entitled “ZoomProspector helps you relocate your business” :

“The service will also connect you with consultants who specialize in industries or locations, as well as economic development agencies that can help you grease the skids when you get interested in a locale.”

VentureBeat covered ZoomProspector’s public launch today! Here’s some excepts from the article entitled “ZoomProspector plays matchmaker to businesses, cities“:

Small business owners conflicted about where to put down roots have a new web tool at their disposal today with the launch of ZoomProspector.

Right now, there’s really nothing like it out there in the field.

Mashable, one the top ten blogs in the world, covered ZoomProspector.com’s public launch today! The following is an except from the article entitled “Commercial Real Estate Service ZoomProspector Opens to the Public” :

“Centralizing all of this data and offering a search tool along with customized maps of information provides users with useful knowledge that they can use when it comes to choosing a location to start or move their business.”

TechCrunch, the second most popular blog in the world, covered today’s public launch of ZoomProspector.com! Here’s an excerpt from the article entitled “ZoomProspector Launches To The Public To Help Businesses Relocate” :

“One of the more useful search functions is the ability to see what other businesses operate in the vicinity, so businesses can determine if they’re going to be working close to a competitor, or even a potential client.”

ZoomProspector launched to the public this morning. Here is our official press release:

ZoomProspector Powers Business Location Decisions

New website is first to offer businesses free access to comprehensive demographic, community, and real estate data while providing a new way for economic development organizations to market their communities.

San Francisco, Calif., October 7, 2008 - A new website was launched today that will help businesses and communities survive and thrive in the current economic environment. The official launch of www.ZoomProspector.com today is a revolutionary step in both economic development and business location decision making. ZoomProspector simplifies and improves the process of site selection analysis, so companies can quickly and effectively identify the right community for their business start-up, expansion, or relocation. Read the rest of this entry »

Density is a clothing retailer that started in San Francisco and is now involved in a West Coast expansion. Michael O’Conner identified new expansion locations and with ZoomProspector.com’s help was able to discover other cities he did not know about that also match his demographic and transportation requirements. Instead of taking the months it took for his first expansion research he found the data in minutes using ZoomProspector. As a result he saw that the size of his consumer market might be twice as big as he originally thought. This could result in twice as many stores and twice the store revenue. 

Steve Sarowitz, CEO of Paylocity, speaks below about how his fast growing company (from two to fourteen locations in the last year) can leverage the functionality and depth of information on ZoomProspector.com to make business location decisions. “We’re continuing to expand all the time,” says Sarowitz, and using ZoomProspector is much quicker “than another source, such as Google”:

In the video below, Jamin Arn, CEO of OfficePro talks about how ZoomProspector is “the perfect company” for helping OfficePro to quickly search for community information, including demographics and commercial real estate. Growing companies such as OfficePro often need to quickly analyze numerous potential business locations simultaneously, and ZoomProspector enables them do so.