Death of the Phone Book

Original Article from IntelliSites, the smart choice for web design (and SEO!)
The end is nigh for those hefty phone books cluttering up your home (or taking up space in the recycling bin.) According to a recent article from the Associated Press, Verizon is doing away with the white pages. There are plenty of statistics showing the decline in phone book usage that definitely justify Verizon's decision to no longer produce the mostly useless, costly, and wasteful residential phone book. And it's no surprise. When was the last time you didn't call someone directly from the stored number in your cell phone? Yeah, I can't remember either.

Beyond Verizon

This trend is national, and it doesn't look good for the future of the phone book. Check out this article about how the Yellow Pages Association is suing Seattle, Washington over their city ordinance that charges fees for phone book distribution and penalties for unwanted delivery. There's even an entire organization dedicated to banning the phone book. No surprise they're sponsored by an online directory.

Even the Business Listings?

Business listings are holding out for now, but probably not for much longer. Typically the internet (which is accessible on most cell phones) is the first place someone looks for a business's phone number or address. And since most businesses have a website, have posted their address and phone number on all the major search engines' map features, and have submitted listings to all the major online directories, then there's no trouble in finding them. You can totally bypass flipping through the phone book and getting your fingers all smudgy from the ink on those tissue thin pages. Sometimes a phone call isn't even required since savvy businesses post their hours of operation, maps, directions, products, services, and coupons all on the internet anyway.

So if you're a business owner and haven't done all that already, then you better do it fast (we can help you with that by the way), because the internet, and Seattle, are killing phone books.