Last week we profiled an interesting startup on one of our sites, Iddictive.com – and although the company is a privately run enterprise it’s a perfect demonstration of exactly the kind of content that businesses could,  and should, be producing online.

Founded by a couple of freelance ski journalists, SnowCarbon.co.uk encourages ski lovers to swap air travel for the greener option of rail travel – cutting carbon emissions ‘by up to 90%’ in the process.

“We’ve selected 30 of the best ski resorts that are convenient to reach by train from the UK. Click on the name of a resort to see a brief summary of the resort and sample train journey, plus a journey map and details of the carbon benefits of travelling by train.

Click on “Resort review” and you’ll find an independent review over 4 pages written by one of our team of leading ski journalists. To find journey details, times, tips and fares, click on the green button, “Journey details and prices”.

By bringing together useful reviews, simplifying the search and booking process and delivering a strong eco-friendly message, Snow Carbon provides the both kind of content that skiers want and the kind of content that is likely to encourage them to travel by train.

While taking nothing away from Snow Carbon itself, this is the kind of detailed, well-crafted, content-driven site that train companies and tour operators should be creating themselves – or incorporating into their existing sites.

Eurostar goes someway towards that with their Ski Train section but it lacks the depth, passion and enthusiasm that Snow Carbon offers.

In short, smart businesses need to start thinking like journalists just as much as freelance journalists need to start thinking like businesses. And if there are any smart ski companies out their, they should be speaking to the Snow Carbon guys before someone else does.

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