Another Useless Yellow Pages — Another Year

How much longer will yellow pages exist?

From the driveway to the trash bin.

Sunday morning I took my dog out for her morning walk as usual. I suddenly heard squealing tires down the road and looked up to see a white van speeding down the road, swerving from side to side. As the van swerved, I heard loud “thump” noises.

A drunk driver? A drive by? Nah, just the yellow pages delivery van.

As I walked up the street, I saw orange bags on each driveway, each containing a couple phone books. Some driveways had one bag; others had 2 or 3. For the rest of the walk I thought regarding how inefficient phone books are. Thousands of sales people go door-to-door convincing modest businesses to make a one time advertising order. The books are printed up, delivered to each home, and then most of them never see the light of day. They go straight into the trash or are used as a booster seat for modest children. Talk regarding a waste of trees.

And what’s inside the yellow pages? A thousand pages of ads with no valuable content. No user reviews. No ability to “find other businesses in this area”.

The internet didn’t kill the phone book overnight, but it certainly will over time.

One of my readers pointed out that the phone book is an excellent source of clients for him. He owns a computer repair shop. This makes sense since a) when your computer isn’t working you can’t use the online phone book and b) people who need help getting on the internet still use phone books. Other than that, it’s uses are limited.

When I’m looking for someone to fix my A/C, I use Angie’s List to read reviews first. When I need to find the store hours for Target, I go to Target.com. When I need to make restaurant reservations I look up the restaurant online. If I’m on the road, I call 800-GOOG-411 (it’s free).

Rest in peace, yellow pages.