BLOGS HELPING SMALL COMPANIES GROW

Good article by Ilana DeBare at the San Francisco Chronicle.

Dennis Woo had doubts at first when an employee asked to start a blog for GreenCine, his online DVD rental company. It seemed like a big and risky commitment for the small San Francisco firm, which at the time had a staff of about 10.

But Woo took the plunge and allowed employee David Hudson to start writing full time about film festivals and other news from the world of independent and alternative cinema. Now, two and a half years later, the GreenCine Daily blog (daily.greencine.com) draws about 80,000 visitors each month with its dispatches from film festivals around the world.

Woo credits the blog with helping double his company's sales in 2004. "When we started off, I was skeptical about whether it would be successful, but it is core to our strategy," he said. (full article)