MySpace and YouTube. Wikipedia and FaceBook. It seems that everywhere these days communities are forming around user generated content. But what about the commercial real estate due diligence community? Where can someone go to access content about commercial real estate that has been contributed, edited, updated and commented on by professionals? I think there is significant pent-up demand for this type of information and, once someone develops the platform for the community, participation will be high.

I didn't think this until recently and the following situation changed my mind. A few years ago, EDR introduced a feature to our web service called FieldCheck. This feature allowed clients to either move the location of a mapped property to a more accurate spot or plot a site that EDR had been unable to plot. EDR would then generate a report that showed the locational changes made by our customer. However, these locational changes would only show in that report and would not show up in a report run later on in the same area. However, behind the scenes, EDR has been keeping a record of all locational changes and improvements made by our customers.

The amazing statistic that blew me away was that as of today, over 18,000 properties across the U.S. have been field verified and more accurately located by environmental consultants. Clearly, there is a willingness in our industry to proactively interact with the data and improve upon it when more information is uncovered during the assessment process.

So the question now is this: Are environmental consultants only willing to contribute content about a property's location or are they willing to contribute, share and receive other forms of content? I am not positive what the answer to this question is but over the course of the next year we intend to find out by releasing additional levels of functionality that will allow the environmental professional community to share more content.

There are many other categories of content that in theory could be collected and shared within the community. Perhaps the location of the local library or historical society could be contributed and shared. Maybe consultants would like to enhance information about a property within the government record itself, much in the same way Zillow allows homeowners to edit and update the tax assessor's records about their home. Or perhaps the EP community would see value in contributing aerial photography in return for having access to other's aerial contributions.

With each of these questions our industry will find itself facing many of the same issues that other industries are confronting regarding content ownership, transparency, data reliability and liability. However, if there is one thing we can learn from observing other industries, it is that each of these issues can be managed for the benefit of everyone provided that user generated content is displayed and described in an accurate manner.