Those companies are both explicitly broker tools. Their business model is a subscription model that the professional real estate community pays in order to do their job. This is just like the airline industry in the 90s: travel agents were equipped with (and paid for) better tools and thus, the average traveler was fully reliant on them.
It's also how residential search existed 7 years ago. There were MLS systems that were mostly just used by realtors to keep track of availabilities. Zillow, Trulia, and Streeteasy liberated all that fragmented data into usable search experiences.
We're 'liberating commercial real estate data.' Which means, anyone can search for free. Once the data is freely available, then companies everywhere can compete for traffic with user experience, customer service, value-added features,etc—all the things you as a customer want these companies to be competing on.
In a world where data is still subscription based, companies compete with lock-in contracts and exclusivity clauses and nobody wins. For proof, check out the design of the big incumbents. It's more than just bad, it's not caring.
We may win, we may not. But we believe that within the next 5 years, the internet will have its usual effect on commercial real estate. And we welcome it for no other reason then we also need to search for office space.
Absolutely. Of course, not all the listings have good data and photos, and there's a subscription model to list, which 42F doesn't have. But it's also about being a startup for startups (at least at this point), and playing off whatever advantage that affords. Obviously LoopNet can't play that angle.
Personally I find both sites irritating, so I'm sure there is an opening here, but I'd love to hear what he thinks it is.