Company: ePodunk.com

ePodunk Inc., which also announces its debut "Home Towns Index" today, celebrates the cultural diversity and heritage of America's 28,000 home towns.It is destined for success because little things still matter.Despite the growth of fast-food restaurants, national retail chains, suburban sprawl, the global economy and the Internet, people are still hungry to know about the best diner in the county, the way natives say "crick" instead of "creek," and the legends that surround historic places.

ePodunk satisfies this desire for local information.Its database contains detailed profiles of 28,000 cities, towns, villages, and hamlets.CEO Laurie Bennett and her team have culled facts from thousands of off-beat sources: their site lists a community's well-known residents and movies that were filmed in the area, along with a wealth of information on local history, festivals, parks, museums, bookstores, school districts, and much more.The site also includes more than 1,000 literary quotations about places, and it gives visitors an opportunity to send and receive free on-line vintage postcards.

"There is no such thing as a small or an unimportant town," says Bennett."The spread of cell phones and the wireless Internet is bringing formerly isolated places into the mainstream.In such an age, we're sure to treasure the things that make places unique."

Bennett is the former director of new media for the Detroit Free Press, where she oversaw the launch of five daily Web sites, including the Freep and Auto.com.She has 24 years of experience in newspaper journalism.ePodunk's Vice President of Content is Brad Edmondson, the former editor-in-chief of American Demographics, a 20-year veteran journalist, and a nationally recognized expert on the effects of population change.The company's Vice President of Design is John Decker, formerly the multimedia editor of The New York Times on the Web.Michelle DeChant, Vice President of eCommerce, is the former publisher of Marketing Tools and advertising director of American Demographics magazine.

The company is located in Ithaca, New York, just a few miles from Podunk, a place so small it doesn't show up on road maps.Since they came together two years ago, ePodunk's founders have combined their professional expertise with their own passions for place to create a site that is truly unique to the Web.Their database was built by hand, one entry at a time, and will be continually updated.

For more information about the company, contact Laurie Bennett at (607)256-1233, (laurie@epodunk.com).For information about the Home Town Index, contact Brad Edmondson at (607)272-1832, (brad@epodunk.com).For more information about our products, contact Michelle DeChant at michelle@epodunk.com or call(607)256-1233.