"It was staggering to hear Mark's figures, but I don't disagree," said Dennis DeAndre, CEO of Loopnet Inc. "I can only hope we're on the up side."

Many said in addition to venture capital and financing from bricks and mortar businesses, consolidation and strategic partnering would provide an answer. "If they keep building individual silos," commented Dan Cornish, CEO of DesignArchitecture.com, "it will not work."

Kevin Travers, president of Comro.com said, "Consolidation will bring clarity."

DeAndre, however, commented, "I don't think we'll see end-to-end. The longer [Loopnet is] at it, the more narrow is our focus."

Negrin stated, "I don't think we'll see a model like Microsoft where all things come from one source." He argued businesses will be seamless and the best of their niche.

The biggest obstacle identified by the panelists was the "fragmented" nature of the industry. All seemed to agree integration, lower prices and easier installation and use of technology would help. "In the future there will be an opportunity to leapfrog within the construction industry based on fragmentation," said Tim Harmon, vice president for strategy of Expertise.

Rice identified the focus from IPO to B2B, terming it "back to business." Paul Mockapetris, senior vice president of engineering CTO for Urban Media, said technology would become so essential, not having it would be "bringing a knife to a gun fight."

Frank Rockwood, CEO of Vectiv, argued that community is out, the marketplace is suspect, "disintermediation" is a bad word and a poor customer base/poorly defined revenue model do not work. He added browser-based applications, ASPs, Internet business service providers, customer focus and providing whole solutions do work.

Many argued integration would bring greater definition of standards. "Standards will emerge over time," predicted Anne Bonaparte, co-founder of Buzzsaw.com. Cornish contended, however, "The idea that one standard is going to emerge is a bit of old thinking." Most panelists throughout the day, despite Cornish's comment, argued standards would emerge and bring owners, wary of technology, to embrace it, and investors, wary of commercial real estate, to see its value.