It will come as a no small (or even tiny) surprise but the latest edition of my local yellow pages book (the dead tree kind, I think this is published by Yell.com) for my part of London is smaller this year than it was last year. The latest 2008 edition is now only 832 pages compared to last year’s 968 pages, that’s about a 15% decline a size. That’s good news for trees but still bad news overall on the ecofront.
The global outlook for YP book revenue is forecast to decline and I predict this could accelerate as more people start to question the use of all that paper for a books that most people use only occasionally. Even Chevy (the car maker) is getting into the environmental side of the conversation on this topic. And lets face it we all know the Web (or Google) is the new yellow pages.
Hey here’s a wild idea: why not create a publish on demand personalized yellow pages that you can either print yourself or for a small fee have delivered on recycled paper?!
3 responses so far ↓
Riaz Kanani // 23 September 2008 at 4:24 pm |
Question: is everything in the Yellow pages on yell.com now?
I ask this because much as I subscribe to the same opinion as you – finding local suppliers for maintenance etc was easier and quicker using the old fashioned book than yell.com last year (much to my disgust)
dylanfuller // 24 September 2008 at 7:04 pm |
That’s a good question. I don’t know. But if I was running Yell.com I would make sure it include all the print info plus a hell of a lot more. I’d also make sure is was really easy to use and personalized.
is local search getting better? | razorshine // 1 October 2008 at 7:30 am |
[...] wrote over on afullerview the other day about how, a year ago, it was still much easier to just pick up the Yellow Pages and [...]