Goodbye Phonebook

Every so often I get phonebooks delivered to my door. (Even though I have never asked for them.) I get the multiple versions of the yellowpages and whitepages.

Well guess what. I don't want them!

As soon as these things get delivered to me they go straight to the recycling bin. I don't need them!

Long ago I said, goodbye newspaper, because I don't read news if it is not on the Internet.

Probably even before that I said goodbye phonebook because I never use any of them either!

Plain and simple, I find stuff on the Internet.

Whenever I want to find a person's or a business's contact information, I look them up on the Internet. Whenever I'm looking for some type of business or service, I search the 'Net.

And I think this is pretty typical of people in my generation and those generations younger than mine.

We don't use phonebooks!

And it looks like one of the world's biggest yellowpages publishers, the Yell Group, knows this and is scared.^[via] Because Yell has threatened to shut down Yellowikis, the wiki-based yellow pages directory.

Signs of Desperation

Yell must be getting desperate if they are trying to intimidate someone like Yellowikis.

Yellowikis has no money. In fact, according to the article, Yellowikis is $500 in the hole.

This would seem to suggest that the entire phonebook industry might be closer to collapse than I previously thought.

Disruptive Innovations

Things change. That's just the nature of our existance.

With commerce, typically you need to adapt to changes to be or stay succesful.

A disruptive innovation is an innovation that really changes everything. A disruptive innovation often (but not always) makes things better for normal people. The Internet is a disruptive innovation.

The Internet has changed how we look for and find information. The businesses behind the phonebook industry need to adapt to this change.

Obviously, it would seem, Yell either isn't or can't adapt.

-- Charles Iliya Krempeaux, B.Sc.