Comments on: Yellow Pages, Anyone?

By: Ed Kohler

Ed Kohler — Tue, 30 Sep 2008 17:31:31 +0000

I have to give KenC credit for defending a dying industry. Not an easy task.

He seems to forget that woodchips are fungible. If they didn’t go into yellow pages, they would be used elsewhere.

And who cares how many impressions the books get overall? All that matters is that they’re considered worthless to you, so you should be able to easily remove yourself from their distribution.

By: Dan

Dan — Tue, 11 Mar 2008 18:18:44 +0000

Even the online version of the yellow pages (canada411.ca) seems useless to me, with none web 2.0 feature. I believe the future of business directories will be wiki-type, like wikipages.com, yellowikis.org, or the canadian wiki411.ca.

By: Teresha Aird

Teresha Aird — Tue, 19 Feb 2008 02:44:02 +0000

I think it really depends on the area and what’s available online. Having lived in the UK for 7 years I don’t think I ever picked up print yellow page book. However now that I’m in Perth, Australia I am forced to as there just aren’t enough small businesses and local traders online. The internet is always my first port of call but I find myself having to dig out the yellow books more often than I’d like to. But the trend will definitely be to move away from the print directories as more online directories become available locally (especially ones, like Bizwiki, that allow businesses to list at no cost).

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:17:02 +0000

Oh and I just noticed that somebody named “KenC” posted similar comments on that other post I referenced too ;+)

By: Peter

Peter — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 21:11:53 +0000

Apparently you can opt out:

http://www.commoncraft.com/how-stop-receiving-phone-books-and-yellow-pages

By: E Guy

E Guy — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 18:59:57 +0000

Hmmm, could Kenc either work for Yellow Pages or be an interested investor?…

Yup, lots of people still use Yellow Pages. Will they continue? The trends would indicate otherwise. When air travel became popular, there were still lots of people using trains and buses and my guess is the companies were making money. Should people have invested in rail and bus companies at that time?

Listen to an investor call for Yellow Pages…the themes are consolidation initiatives on the print side and growth opportunities on the online side. That should in of itself indicate how yellow pages themselves looks at the markets.

Kenc is drinking the koolaid. There will always be a place for the yellow pages books, just a much smaller place as time marches on.

By: Magnus

Magnus — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:56:50 +0000

Kenc is absolutely right, people who work on-line forget that we are not the average consumer, we search for everything online and we dont click banner ads

My mother is on dial up with no intention of shelling out extra money for hi-speed as she said she does’nt need it. When she needs to look something up she grabs the good old Yellowpages.

By: jules

jules — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:48:43 +0000

I’m slightly chagrined that my 2008 yellow pages directory is still sitting on my front porch, under a snowdrift. It’s too bad that this isn’t something that could be an opt-out service.

By: Daniel Gibbons

Daniel Gibbons — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:23:36 +0000

It’s funny, my wife and I have a long-running argument about directories. While I can’t stand the sight of them, she continues to use them regularly, including the Yellow Pages, and insists that they are often more efficient than searching online. Now I’d love to claim I’m right and she’s wrong, but while my various start-ups are all in the early stages of figuring out how to make money, our other business, which she runs full time, is extremely profitable. So she must know something I don’t…

By: Mark Evans

Mark Evans — Mon, 18 Feb 2008 16:22:17 +0000

I think that I just got officially rapped on the knuckles.

Kenc, thanks for the insight.

Mark