When I think back over the past 10 years that GlobeSt.com hasbeen following the fortunes of the commercial real estate industry,I think about not only real estate itself but subjects that, thoughat least one step removed from the industry, still had bearing onit. About the time we were building a head of steam and gettingready to launch GlobeSt.com, there were the concerns about Y2K andwhat disasters might befall computers around theworld―including those that keep all of the financialrecords that are so important to real estate. Y2K came and wentsmoothly, and there is no truth to the speculation that we waiteduntil after January 1, 2000 to launch GlobeSt.com to make sure ourcomputers would be working.

But Y2K did bring another concern: the Dot-Com bubble, which hada more direct bearing on real estate. New internet companies werestarting up all over the place, not just in Silicon Valley here inCalifornia, and they were buying and leasing loads of space. Often,they were taking on much more space than needed, anticipating hugegrowth, so they helped to drive up rents and sales prices. The realestate industry prospered from this Dot-Com growth for a while, butit had to adjust drastically when the bubble burst. Nonetheless,commercial real estate recovered and went on to prosper along withthe rest of the economy until the downturn late in the decade.

Another event not directly related to real estate that comes tomind was America Online’s purchase of Time Warner, which showedjust how much the world was changing technologically. Not only hastechnology seriously advanced, making it easier to text, email,network through social media and get news around the clock, but ithas also created less of a need for face-to-face meetings, althoughthe need for those meetings, in my opinion is that they are stillvery necessary.