Location, Location, Location: Brought To You By GIS

"Many factors affect whether a place is a good location for a particular business, including the labor force, tax rates, distance from suppliers and distributors, access to transportation, and the local market for the company's products or services. "Is there a perfect location? There is no such thing," says Anatalio Ubalde, co-founder of GIS Planning, a San Francisco company that analyzes geographic data for economic developers. "Is there a better location than another one? The answer is yes."

GIS Planning launched a site three months ago called ZoomProspector.com, designed to help entrepreneurs find and evaluate potential sites based on what attributes of a place matter most to their business. Other Web sites like City-data.com provide local information, but Ubalde says ZoomProspector's proprietary data, much of it collected from the company's economic development clients, offers small business owners access to the same information large companies use when they decide where to site new locations. ZoomProspector is free for users and makes money by selling geographically targeted advertising, Ubalde says."