Year One - 1995
Becky's original list contained 45 links. By July, 1995, the "Internet Real Estate Directory" (IRED) as Becky's list was now titled, contained more than 1000 links to US real estate sites. Becky did no promotion of the site, but word got out quickly that this was the place to go to find real estate information on the WEB.

Inman News Features contacted Becky about merging Inman News site and IRED under one umbrella, to be called, "IRED NEWS".

Becky turned to Joann Chokrach, a friend she had met years earlier on Prodigy, for help with the new venture. Joann was given the responsibility for making the two sites, housed on two separate servers, appear as one - and later, when the two sites actually merged on a single server in SanFrancisco (in November, 1995), became the Webmaster for "Inman News"

"There were over 4000 documents housed in 47 directories. Not having access to Server Side Includes (SSI) or cgi-scripts, made maintenance a real nightmare.", Joann says of those early days.

The site underwent constant formatting revisions while trying to discover its identity. Joann and Becky would joke about how the site "changed its hair color every week."

The Hobby Becomes a Business
By December the number of directory entries exceeded 3000. In response to user input, ratings had been added to the site links months earlier, and reviewing sites was becoming a full-time job.

The hobby had become a business. A business needed income.

IRED doesn't charge for placing a web site address in the directory. Becky believes that, especially on the Internet, one must first furnish service with value before rendering services for fee. IRED NEWS was furnishing a valuable service. An announcement was made that those with entries in the directory could enhance their entry for a fee (have the entry changed to BOLDFACE and add additional text lines) in the same manner that is used in the Yellow Pages of a telephone book. Display or graphical advertisements could also be placed on the pages of IRED News for a fee.