NORTHPORT, NEW YORK — YellowPagesGoesGreen.org, a massive business directory website at the forefront of the environmentally-conscious “Green“ movement, is proud to announce results of its ongoing four-year survey to determine the growing consensus of the public at large as to the choices they make when it comes to accessing telephone directories; are they going with print or online, physical or digital? And, according to a completely impartial and factual survey conducted by YellowPagesGoesGreen (YPGG), the trend established by our 2013 survey continues as the public’s reliance upon outdated print telephone books has diminished even further as the masses embrace the speed and efficiency of online directories such as YPGG to get the information they need to procure the goods and services that they want.
Conducted over the course of one year on YPGG’s home page and participants carefully screened to ensure that only one vote could be tallied per IP address to ensure a fair and impartial outcome, the survey’s results were quite conclusive- out of a total of 2963 votes asking which version of the Yellow Pages do they use the most – paper or online – only 36 percent (1061 votes) of users indicated paper; the remaining 64 percent, making up 1900 votes, overwhelmingly indicated online sources such as YPGG. Compared to our 2013 survey, this represents an increase of four percent in terms of consumers who utilize online phone directories and, likewise, a corresponding four percent drop in paper directory use overall. The obvious conclusion that one can and should draw from these results is that the public continues to recognize that digital is the way to go when it come to getting the fastest and most up-to-date telephone directory information.
Print Yellow Pages are a slowly dying breed; according to a recent article published by Consumerist, while still an industry that still generates profit, the reach and grasp of print directories have shown considerable shrinkage in recent years, and part of the reason that they still continue to be viable as a business venture is because they have begin integrating themselves with their one-time nemesis – online directories – in a desperate bid to remain relevant in a digital age.
“It’s not going to be a growing business at this point, as the publisher of the Yellowbook directories in NYC cut its Brooklyn and Manhattan editions. Dex Media, publisher of Verizon directories, serves all five boroughs but no longer has Spanish-language or neighborhood editions,” Consumerist said. “These are not the heavy door-thwackers of the past, either — the books have gone on a diet, as most retail advertisers have turned to the internet in the digital age. One reason print-directory publishers have stayed in business is by bundling print ads with online listings and digital marketing services.”
Businesses are leaving print phone books in record numbers in recent years; The Sales Lion, a commerce and marketing blog, recently published an entire article directly dismantling the failing print Yellow Pages advertising industry, equating it with literally standing on a bridge and throwing your hard-earned dollars to the wind.
“I wrote an article about this recently explaining how the advertising model of yellow pages simply doesn’t fit the mind of today’s consumer,” they said. “Today’s consumer searches online before they do anything else. Their first step towards making a purchasing is essentially the first keys they hit on their computers at work or at home to begin the information gathering process. It’s safe to say that Yellow Pages, at least the ‘book’ form, won’t be around in a few more years as businesses get smarter and smarter with their advertising dollars.”
However, the failing business model of print Yellow Pages isn’t the only reason people are abandoning it in favor of online sources like YPGG in droves; according to Triple Pundit, a “green” business blog, the environmental impact of both the manufacture and eventual disposal of print phone directories as a huge and ever-growing source of pure garbage has been significant and only continues to get worse, citing a waste management guide published by New Mexico State University.
“A key suggestion from the university is to eliminate phone books. Just the white pages alone cost 5 million trees a year. And while phone books are delivered via snail-mail once a year, services allow people to opt-out of automatic phone book delivery. And smartphone apps replace the yellow pages,” they said. “New York City’s Department of Environmental Protection swapped phone books for electronic phone directories and eliminated about 1.3 tons of paper every year. Plus, it reduced greenhouse gas impacts by 2.8 metric tons of carbon equivalent (MTCE) a year. Recycling that amount would only produce a reduction of one MTCE a year.”
No matter how you look at it – either from a business standpoint, an environmental one, or a simple matter of efficiency and convenience – the masses have spoken on the issue of print vs. digital phone directories, and have come out in force square on the side of the latter. The divide between the two will only continue to grow as more and more people and businesses push aside the old and embrace the new; online telephone print directories such as YPGG are indeed the wave of the future, here today.
An innovator in digital business information delivery, YellowPagesGoesGreen.org is a cutting-edge website that delivers over 28.5 million up-to-the-minute listings of businesses throughout the United States and Canada; users can quickly, easily, and conveniently access the information they need to find the goods and services that they want.
