The Death of the Yellow Pages

Newt Barrett:

In January 2008, I wrote two stories about the Yellow Pages which some readers probably thought to be alarmist. Now, the Wall Street Journal appears to agree with my drastic prediction.

In the first of those January articles, I suggested that advertisers should be rethinking their Yellow Pages strategy based on the results of an informal research study I had conducted: Is It Time to Abandon Your Yellow Pages Advertising? In the second, I reported the results of a test Idid comparing the Yellow Pages search in print and online with a Google search. The Yellow Pages lost in both cases: Real World Experiment Explains Impending Demise of Yellow Pages.

The November 17, 2008 Wall Street Journal article kicks off with a headline just as brutal as anything I might have written: Extinction Threatens Yellow-Pages Publishers.