It was never a matter of “if” but “when”.
The digital age has left a lot of casualties in its wake and in the last five years it was expected that white pages, yellow pages and printed directories in general would succumb to a digital Ice Age of sorts, ultimately leaving them extinct (newspapers, you are on the clock).
According to the Washington Post, Verizon, one of the nation’s largest land-line carriers, has already had requests granted to stop printing and delivering residential white pages in five states and is looking to extend that mission to all 12 states it supplies to. Instead, the directories will be available online, on CD, or – for those who find it absolutely necessary – printed and delivered on request.
Picture taken outside the eZanga office.
With the online revolution in full swing for years now, the dominance of companies like Google and Facebook prove that information and connections are increasingly being shared over the web. Over 77 percent of people in the U.S. spend their day online. Their thinking is “why rummage through thousands of numbers in the phone book when you can simply search for it online?” And that’s not to mention the plummeting state of land-lines due to the overwhelming use of cell phones over the last decade. Finding people under the age of 30 who use a land line is becoming an ever more difficult search mission. Verizon’s directory producer, Gallup for SuperMedia, says the percentage of households using the residential white pages dipped from 25 percent in 2005 to 11 percent in 2008.
Word on the street though is that more than enough people are still using the yellow pages. The Yellow Pages Association (the above mentioned “street”, mind you) says that 550 million residential and business directories are printed every year, so they are doing just fine, thank you. That likely isn’t a shocking fact considering you pass roughly 10 percent of those lying helplessly in the front lawns of people happily using their computers instead. Oh yeah, getting rid of these mammoth books also saves a lot of trees in the process.
SuperMedia did indicate that they would continue to supply the government and business pages, but for how long? More local businesses are visible on the internet and are finding it to be a better way to reach customers. Every state has its own government website.
There will remain people stuck in their ways; those who refuse to showcase their business online and those who refuse to learn how to turn on one of those dadgum smart machines because they can always pick up the phone book. Sooner rather than later, they won’t be left with much of a choice.
