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Local Voices

Print Yellow Pages: Hopelessly Obsolete?

If there’s one thing that’s for sure nowadays, it’s that technology is taking over almost every aspect of our lives. The addition of the smartphone alone into the hands and pockets of just about everyone – combining the power of a telephone, laptop, e-book reader, and more – has rendered the standalone version of such items, well, less useful; and as time passes, this will only decline even further. Truly, we are witnessing the coming of a digital age.

 

However, there are unfortunate casualties when it comes to this digital evolution, such as phone books. More and more people are turning to e-readers, their phone or tablet computers to find information, and phone books are becoming especially endangered– yet I still receive this large 4.5 lb. fire-starter at my door. Formerly a mainstay of every home in America these print editions seeing what has been generally accepted as happening to newspapers – they’re just plain ole dying. “Even enduring optimists will concede that if print journalism is not in its dying days it is certainly in the midst of a reinvention.” said one journalism major at the Nieman Foundation for Journalism.

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The advantages of online digital Yellow Page directories, such as the kind offered by websites such as YellowPagesGoesGreen.orgYellowPageCity.com, YellowBot.com or other “Electronic Yellow Pages” have proven that the print era is passing by...if it hasn’t done so already. In fact, it doesn’t seem to even matter if it’s yellow, green – or even purple. It’s only got to be ready, available, and on users phones to matter most.

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 The advantages of electronic Yellow Page directories (or even residential White Page directories) over a typical phone book are plain to see; first of all, online listings are fluid and are typically updated constantly, always ensuring users with the most accurate information; meanwhile, print directory information is static, doesn’t change often, and users have to wait, usually, 365 days before they get any form of an update dropped onto their doorstep. In an unstable national economy where businesses open and close every day, consumers clearly need a more flexible and dynamic solution to their directory needs...one that only a digital medium can provide.

 

 As a result of the ease and speed of use digital directories offer – nowadays a user can not only look up the address, phone number, and reviews of their local pizza joint with nothing but a smartphone. Advertising in print media such as phone books has been in sharp decline for nearly a decade now, with The Wall Street Journal pointing out how the print phone book industry has been hemorrhaging money for years.

 

 “U.S. spending on print Yellow Pages advertisements has been on a steep slide,” they said. “Last year it totaled $8.6 billion, down 40% from a peak of $14.2 billion in 2005.”

 

Then there’s the environmental aspect of the phone book equation. An article published on White Pages Blog entitled "Five Reasons You Don't Need Phone Books" cites statistics such as the fact that 615 million volumes of phonebooks equates to 100 million tons; obviously, a fair percentage of that staggering sum will end up in landfills, as according to Earth911.com, only 37 percent of phone books were recycled in 2009. The White Pages Blog article also mentions the growing membership and effectiveness of online phone directories and the growing ease of opting out of receiving phone books to begin with as other convincing arguments for doing away with the archaic concept of print directories in favor of digital solutions to business listings.

 

Speed, convenience, accuracy, environmentally sound... Electronic Yellow Pages are paving a superhighway of information into the future, and unfortunately for the age-old print directory, the pavement of said highway end here. While many seniors still prefer to use the good ol’ print phone books, millions of younger do not, and more and more each day are “opting-out” of delivery. It can be disconcerting to think that someday there may be precious little that we actually read on paper, but the benefits of such an evolution clearly outweigh the disadvantages, at least until its time to whip out your phone and order a pizza.

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