ZoomProspector.com has pulled off a coup. The world of economic development has badly needed a single Web tool that was user-friendly, accessed current data, and had a sufficient level of detail. First and foremost, this is an application for growing businesses. Plagued with overly aggressive brokers, out-of-date information, and the near-impossibility of finding good national data, smaller businesses were hard-pressed to make rational decisions about where to locate. What ZoomProspector does is simplify the site search, allowing quick and easy access to the demographic, business, and location characteristics of every community as well as thousands of sites and buildings across the U.S.

This tool gains its real value in making transparent what has long been the private domain of dozens of fragmented, smaller sites. We badly need accurate information about workforce, transportation, and infrastructure. Businesses can no longer fly by the seat of their pants. Volatile fuel prices and a tightening labor market have put many companies in a precarious situation. In this context, ZoomProspector is also invaluable for economic development organizations and site selectors. To know what makes a place competitive is absolutely essential. The website accomplishes this through a number of innovative features, including a community ranking wizard, demographics of every city in the U.S., in-depth property info, and a Google Maps interface – with the useful Street View option and access to the local map layers of data you can’t even find on the regular version of Google Maps. Having this much data on one application makes it immensely easier to benchmark progress, identify weaknesses, and think strategically about one’s community.

ZoomProspector’s challenge will be to take this cutting-edge tool and keep it that way. If it pulls that off, it will help revolutionize the industry.

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