Who needs a phone book?
Lots of people – but the number is dropping in this digital age.
Eric Inman doesn’t use one.
“Never. It’s just so easy to go online,” said Inman, 33, of Denver. “It goes right to recycling. I sit in front of a computer all day. I guess we keep one of the smaller ones, just in case.”
In the age of the Internet and the ability to get information just about anytime, anywhere electronically, fewer people are using large, heavy directories to find what they need.
But John Blade of Denver does, about once a month.
“I’m one of those odd people with no computer or cellphone,” said Blade, 59. “I’m sure if you asked someone 20 years old, they don’t.”
It’s phone-book season in the metro area. Dex Media started delivering books in January and will continue through the end of this month. Other publishers such as Yellow Book distributed in October.
From 2002 to 2005, the number of times people used their yellow pages fell about 4 percent, according to the Yellow Pages Association, a Berkeley Heights, N.J., trade organization. Internet yellow-page inquiries are up about 64 percent.
Still, the print editions get billions more uses than the electronic editions. In 2005, print versions had 14.5 billion uses, and Internet versions had 1.8 billion uses, the association said.
While people like Blade will pick up the new books and recycle the old ones, others will leave the directories on doorsteps or in apartment-building lobbies, sparking ire from property managers.
“It’s become a nuisance. People don’t use them,” said Diane Porter, property manager for Premier Lofts on Market Street in Denver. “We had to collect all the books left standing and have them recycled.”
Porter said Dex directories were delivered to each of the 250 apartments at Premier Lofts last week in large plastic bags containing three books. After three days, management collected still-full bags from about 60 doorsteps.
Adults 18 to 49 are more likely to head straight to the Web to find yellow-pages information, according to the association, and they’re using websites linked to the print directories.
“I use Yellowbook.com,” said Jake Kranig, 26. “It’s just much easier. None of my friends use the yellow pages.”
However, print directories aren’t going the way of the typewriter anytime soon. It’s a $16 billion industry in the U.S., with nearly 90 percent of Americans using the print version at least once a year, according to the Yellow Pages Association.
The proliferation of Internet usage on computers and cellphones has not hurt the traditional print business, according to Mitzi Miyoshi, regional market manager for Dex Media in Denver. “We believe the print product will be around for a long time,” she said. “We deliver over a million copies of the big book. Nine out of 10 people have the Dex book.”
Larry Small, research director for the Yellow Pages Association, said people are in “an information-gathering mode” and searching for it in a variety of ways.
“Irrespective of whether that’s a paper environment, electronic or wireless, we have data that allows people to find what people are looking for at the precise time they’re looking for it,” he said.
Yellow Book USA, a Dex competitor in the Denver area, said that its website is a “companion” to the printed books.
“The Internet doesn’t impede the growth of our print directory,” said Sherrie Walters, spokeswoman for Uniondale, N.Y.- based Yellow Book USA. “Revenues from the print side continue. Advertisers get a great return on their investment.”
The Internet doesn’t let users easily assess prices of local services, compared with a printed directory, said Perry Evans, founder and former president of mapping giant Mapquest.
“There’s a level of experience that’s just not there on the Internet yet,” said Evans, CEO of Local Matters Inc., a Denver-based search-technology company that helps power yellow-pages sites.
Although Keith Moore never touches the eight phone books stacked in a cabinet at his Denver home, the marketing executive used to work at a fitness company that spent at least $20,000 annually to advertise in various yellow-pages directories.
“We always had to make the decision on spending so much money in an antiquated medium,” said Moore, 40. “But people would say they found us in the phone book. It was always No. 1.”
Staff writer Kimberly S. Johnson can be reached at 303-954-1088 or kjohnson@denverpost.com.
