New Print Yellow Pages Usage Stats from comScore-TMP Study
TMP Directional Marketing and comScore announced their annual joint “Local Search Usage Study” today, and there were some interesting statistics:
- Following online local searches, consumers most often contact a business over the telephone (39%), visit the business in-person (32%) or contact the business online (12%).
- 1 out of 5 local business searchers with an Internet-accessible cell phone have conducted a local search via the mobile Web.
- Those that own wifi devices (such as the iPhone) are the most likely to conduct local business search via the mobile Web, with more than half of these respondents reporting mobile local business searching.
- 30 percent of respondents still rely on directories as their primary local business research source, despite a 3 percent decline from 2007 to 2008.
- Traditional IYP sites such as Superpages.com, YELLOWPAGES.COM, Yahoo! Yellowpages.com, etc. account for 60 percent of local IYP business searches.
- Local Search sites such as Google Maps, MapQuest, Yahoo! Local, etc. account for 40 percent of local IYP business searches.
Popularity: 6% [?]
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 10/09/2008 | Permalink | 
Email
| 
Print
Trackback | Comments (2) | Comments RSS |
Filed under: Local Search, Market Data, Yellow PagesPhone-Books, print-yellow-pages, yellow pages usage, YP
Top 25 Things Vanishing from America: The Yellow Pages
AOL’s Walletpop blog has created a list of the Top 25 Things Vanishing from America. They listed “The Yellow Pages” as item number 24, along with such things as outhouses, classified ads, dial-up internet access, phone landlines, VCRs, cameras that use film, and more.
I’ve written before about how print yellow pages usage is decreasing due to the internet and mobile phones, and even internet yellow pages usage may be dropping due to newer generations becoming less aware of what yellow pages are. Others such as Bill Gates have also predicted the end of the print yellow pages while analysts such as those with The Kelsey Group have only predicted a sharper decline in usage of print YP this year, compared with last. [* This last sentence subsequently corrected after publication - see below.]
So, when will print yellow pages ultimately go the way of the dinosaur?
It’s unclear since some analysts have predicted a 3% overall decline per year for printed YP income, while others have stated the rate could be accelerating, with print YPs dying off within about 10 years. Also, some claim the demise of the printed directories is greatly exaggerated, since some smaller and more-specialized directories have seen increases in business.
What is clear is that increasing access to alternative sources of information in the way of internet local search, 411 services, and search-enabled mobile phones are definitely eroding usage of print YPs by some degree.
Yellow pages would seem to have already moved past the tipping point — when people begin listing YP books nostalgically as icons of the past, and when consumers are demanding that YP companies stop dropping books on their doorsteps — it seems like the end may be drawing near. If it is an accelerating business trend, no amount of guerrilla marketing, nanotechnology, and possibly questionable YP usage statistics will prop up the larger companies dependent on this business model unless they diversify rapidly.
[* The sentence in paragraph two originally read "Others such as Bill Gates and The Kelsey Group have also predicted the end of the print yellow pages." That sentence originally only mentioned Bill Gates when I was still drafting it, and I accidentally rendered it incorrect when I added in mention of The Kelsey Group without properly qualifying that they have only predicted some erosion of print usage. The Kelsey Group has not to my knowledge predicted an absolute end of the print YP industry.]
Popularity: 11% [?]
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 07/21/2008 | Permalink | Email
| Print
Trackback | Comments (4) | Comments RSS |
Filed under: Local Search, Yellow Pagesprint-yellow-pages, Yellow Pages, yellow pages books
The Kelsey Group Puts Print Yellow Pages On Notice
Over at Media Post, The Kelsey Group is quoted today saying that the erosion in usage of print yellow pages is likely to fall off at a higher rate this year — by 10% this year, compared with only 2% to 3% erosion in recent years.
They state that a combination of factors such as more users going to internet yellow pages and local search engines combined with a recession are propelling the rapid erosion. Concerningly, one can extrapolate that if print YP usage is dropping, advertiser dollars might also follow the herd.
As Greg Sterling points out, The Kelsey Group has historically been a very staunch defender of the print YP industry, so this article is a bit of a gut-punch to people in the legacy print business, even though anyone watching the trends over the last few years won’t find it all that surprising.
One thing the Media Post article doesn’t mention is how (more…)
Popularity: 47% [?]
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 01/11/2008 | Permalink | Email
| Print
Trackback | Comments (7) | Comments RSS |
Filed under: Local Search, Market Data, News, Yellow Pagesiyp, Kelsey Group, Local Search, Online-Yellow-Pages, print-yellow-pages, Yellow Pages
Could Nanotechnology Save Print Yellow Pages?
Technological evolution continues to change our everyday lives, and the speed of changes over the last two decades has caused an acceleration of impacts to traditional forms of business. Nowhere is this more evident than in the impact to usage of printed yellow pages directories. Once the mainstay for locating businesses, many consumers now treat the books as doorstops or fireplace kindling.
The Yellow Pages Association’s annual report and other research indicates that consumer usage of print directories is on the decline while usage of online yellow pages and local search are increasing. The main divergence of opinion seems to be in how long it will be before print dies completely - ten years, fifty years, or a century? Simba research indicates that profits of core yellow pages are down while independent publishers are increasing at double-digit rates, indicating that advertisers continue to see value in print YP exposure. Even though the print biz still has lots of money and usage, those who have watched tech trends during the Information Age know that transitions of this sort can often reach a tipping point rapidly, perhaps rendering print YP irrelevant at the closer end of the timeline estimates.
In all the rush to sound the death-knell for print most folks are looking upon it as merely a dinosaur, soon to die as a result of the meteor-strike of internet search technology. But, could there be another future in store for print directories?
I’ve been watching developments in a number of converging lines of technology for a while now, and I foresee another potential fate for the print directories: nanotechnology. Read on and I’ll explain.
Popularity: 11% [?]
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 03/20/2007 | Permalink | Email
| Print
Trackback | Comments (3) | Comments RSS |
Filed under: Futurism, Local Search, Online Directories, Research and Development, Yellow Pagesiyp, nanotech, nanotechnology, Online Directories, Online-Yellow-Pages, print-yellow-pages, Yellow Pages
Print Yellow Pages Vs. Online Yellow Pages / Local Search
I was noticing that Paul Haahr, an engineer I met at Google Dance last September, mentioned on his blog in January that he doesn’t like traditional print yellow pages. He consideres them to be something of a dinosaur, and his attitude is clearly communicated by his habit of leaving them to be turned into a pile of gray sludge by the rain on his doorstep when they’re delivered to his neighborhood. (I’m okay with him neglecting his directory in this way, since it’s an AT&T phone book.)
As a longtime employee of Verizon’s yellow pages directory company, I probably should act completely horrified at Paul’s disparagement of the well-established printed books, but I have to agree with his take on the matter. Print yellow pages don’t give me all the info I’m wanting any more, and the book has become something of an annoyance. It takes up space in my house, and it seems like the new replacement is always showing up about the time that I’ve only just gotten around to shelving the previous one. Online yellow pages and internet search sites have given me everything that I need.
Paul’s take on the matter is so amusing to me because it strikes a resonance with my own feelings about the whole thing. It’s a bit ironic to me (and it feels slightly disloyal!), because when I started at SuperPages nine years ago, I couldn’t really conceive of throwing away my phone books. Back then, we almost couldn’t imagine people choosing to use our online YP, because it was faster to look stuff up in the books rather than trying to use our online service!
But, stuff’s changed a whole lot. People have continuous and speedy connections to the internet, and our site responds back to queries a lot faster than in the old days. I can’t even hope to find everything I want in the print directory any more — it can’t tell me what theatre, store, restaurant, etc. is closest to my home or office. Since I live in the Dallas/Fort Worth Metroplex, I’d likely have to page through about 10 small city directories and perform distance interpolation on a map to figure out which businesses were closest to me! Fun (and geeky!) exercise, but I don’t have time for that.
Considering all this, why haven’t print yellow pages disappeared altogether? For that reason, why do merchants still spend significant amounts of their advertising budgets to have presence in the books? Are the printed books still a good business proposition? Surprisingly, they are indeed still worthwhile — read on and I’ll explain.
Popularity: 5% [?]
Possible Related Posts
Posted by Chris Silver Smith of Netconcepts on 05/17/2006 | Permalink | Email
| Print
Trackback | Comments (13) | Comments RSS |
Filed under: Online Directories, Yellow PagesOnline-Yellow-Pages, Phone-Books, Phonebook, Printed-Directories
