Maybe there should be an age limit on Yellow Pages delivery. 70 and over?
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I feel this guy’s pain (not loving his art project though). I get three different sets of phone books (separate white and yellow pages) from three different companies every year. Makes great kindling though.
Obviously Bell et al just love wasting money! Just because you’re an illiterate hosebag that doesn’t know what “a book” is, doesn’t mean other people don’t find them handy.
BTW, y’all know that yellow pages are advertising right? So not only Bell but everyone in it still understands the value of a real book.
Couldn’t agree more, every search I do returns crap miles away…no matter what you tell it, 5 miles, 10 miles, etc. I go to the phonebook and boom, there is everything local. Not against internet searches, but until ads for “nationwide” companies that are not in my area are removed, they are a pain.
You could just start using yellowpages.com, or at least learn how to use parenthesis in Google to find exactly what you want.
God forbid people want companies to stop wasting copious amounts of resources.
You don’t use parenthesis; you use quotation marks to search for an exact phrase in google, and most other search engines.
Sounds like someone has an issue properly leveraging technology. Just gotta know how to search, I’ve not cracked a phonebook in ages.
@psychodad: I love books, read ‘em all the time. Ones with advertising sprinkled in amongst stuff I may want, not so much. The people still advertising in the phone books are the ones run by old people that don’t understand they’ve gone the way of the dodo.
Total agreement here. Internet searches for business are iffy propositions, they’re okay for larger chaines but searches for local businesses are like finding a needle in a haystack. And even when you do turn up some local businesses the list is rarely as complete (or up to date even) as the phone directory.
I don’t think you know how to search properly o.o
I agree with Prior Semblance.
Either you’re retarded and can’t figure out internet searches or you’re using some obscure website.
I’ve been using the internet to search for phone numbers and locations since 2002 and never once had a problem, despite living in both very small and larger cities.
Wow, retarded or don’t know how to use technology? I have been using Google since before most people knew it existed…I can write code in three languages, have been building my own PC with both Windows and Unix variants for over 15 years….I know what 72 pin SIMMs are, so you all can piss off.
The internet brings out the expert arseholes in droves.
Scott-
It’s taken you 15 years to build a PC? And it’s still not done?…I think it’s time you find another profession / hobby.
[would comment to Scott but does not speak binary]
I use google almost exclusively for searches for businesses and have never in recent memory had a problem with it returning hits from far away or even a few miles. I can enter some thing as specific as Pizza Hut or as general as equipment rentals and get back hits less than 2 miles from home.
Learn how to use Google Maps. If I can’t find the address, phone number or location of exactly what I’m looking for within 30 seconds with Google Maps, then I didn’t need the information to start with.
Could you be a little more arrogantly contemptuous? Especially since you’re wrong.
I’d estimate that not one in fifty local businesses has a website.
You might notice too that Google and yellowpages.com can be years out of date, and of course neither lists opening hours.
Well, you culture-less man cow, maybe the artist isn’t as concerned with “wasting money” as wasting our natural resources. A telephone directory is by no means a “book,” and if you consider it one then you’re obviously the illiterate one. Anyhow, go drink from your plastic water bottle and drive your hummer. Or whatever it is you do to have a negative impact on the environment.
Wow…Does anyone else notice that the sides to this argument are just based on where you live? More urban areas tend to have many of their businesses (local or chain) available to search online, while in smaller towns and more rural areas you’re lucky if the company has a current phone number listed, much less an up to date website.
So, yeah if it’s an option, you chose the internet over wasting materials on a large scale, but (offensive warning) for many people who actually TYPE OUT “y’all” and call a phone book a “real book” achieving any meaningful results from an internet search is unlikely.
You can also call them and ask that they dont deliver to your house anymore. They reported a couple of years ago that distribution was down over 90% in the past 10 years.
Thank you! I didn’t realize that!
I’ll be calling them Monday.
You can yes but it will not do any good. They will send you one anyway. Also it is not just the Bell companies. We get about 5 or 6 yellow pages a year. “yellow book” , “verizon” , ” MacCloud” “The Yellow Pages” and of course The “Bell” Yellow pages, and i know I am forgetting some others.
Personally, I’m quite literate. And I hate these stupid things. They take up too much space and still manage to be grossy incomplete. I don’t know about all areas, but here we get three of these stupid things every time they come by. One Yellow Pages, one White Pages, and one “County Directory”.
Businesses used to get a free Yellow Pages ad as long as they had a business phone. Now they have to pay extra. Many don’t. The so-called “County Directory” is even worse. For example, I know I have a dozen grocery stores within a 10 minute drive of my house. The “directory” shows me one.
If you rely on these books, you’ll have your choices cut down by at least a half, if not more.
Google works much better and takes up no room.
They are also useful if you have preschool age children, as something to sit on so they can eat at the table.
This is awesome. I delivered these little bastards for 4 (ten+ hour) days with enlisting help and getting payed less than minimum wage. It would have made my day if someone caught me and was like; just burn my phone book.
I still have nightmares about walking 50 miles over 4 days. ATT had to make it as difficult as possible. XD
My parents have owned their own business in the service industry for over two decades. At first, their primary form of advertisement was the local yellow pages and the local B2B book. Over the years, the results of that have gone down. They have asked customers “Where did you learn/hear about us?” and “online”/”your website beats out “yellow pages” by a MASSIVE margin. In the past two months, they have gotten three jobs via customers who said they used the yellow pages to find them.
Fact: Nearly everyone uses the Internet to find information on local businesses nowadays. A quick Google search for your choice of “Deli”/”Auto Repair”/”Locksmith”/”Electrician”/”Plumber”/”HVAC” and my zip code returns no fewer than 5 results for any of them, within 5 miles. If you can’t find local businesses online, either you’re not looking properly, or there aren’t any. Probably the former.
People who use the yellow pages to look up information are a dying breed.
I felt that I had to reply to this. I’m guessing that you live near a city. I live in out in the country. If I didn’t have the yellow pages, I couldn’t find anything. In the summer months, the storms knock out the power, so not internet. In the winter, Ice storms do the same. Even when the power isn’t out, 90% of the time, the internet is. Also, I have to go about 3 or 4 miles up the hill to get cell phone service, so none of these fancy new internet phones work either.
Just because city people don’t use something, don’t deprive the other 98% of the country of it!
Are you seriously trying to say that only 2% of the united states population resides in cities? According to 2005 figures, 81% of the united states lived in urban and suburban areas. That sucks that your internet goes out and you live in an area with unreliable service, but the majority of the US is stably connected to the electric grid as well as internet. It’s all business though, once companies realize phone book ads are being viewed by fewer people, it’ll start a cycle of the books being phased out of regular distribution.
98% of people don’t live in the country. Get your facts straight. There are more people in New York *City* than in Idaho, Montana and Wyoming. Your are not the majority.
I’m pretty sure that 98% of the country is NOT in your situation. Rather, the majority of people in this country are likely to be in nerdboy’s situation.
Maybe 98% of the country, but less than 5% of the population. Maybe they can print one just for you.
Where do you live? I live in a rural area and I’ve never heard of anyone having problems like. At least not in the modern era anyway.
My yellow books go immediately to my recycling bin. Next time, I think I’ll try shinobi’s idea; calll them to tell them to stop.
I prefer using the yellow pages over the internet. At least I can find EXACTLY what I am looking for. Don’t have to go searching through everything that has similarities.
I also don’t need to spend money on a computer,that not only needs constant updating, but has problems with being slow, or catching a virus.
I agree with Wolf. I know how to use the searches but I prefer using the yellow pages for business. So much quicker and easier to find exactly what I want, instead of having to wade through a huge list of sound alike stuff which is never what I am looking for. Last search on the internet I used for a business, yielded a list of over 30 with only 1 of them the kind of business I was looking for. After wasting at least an hour going through all, it took me 10 minutes with the yellow pages to find what I needed. Computers are great for some things but it’s not my whole life. Yep, that’s almost blasphemy for someone from Seattle but I don’t care. People…get away from the computers, leave your electronics at home and go out into the world and experience it!
Dammit, just recycle them!
Perhaps the phone companies should just send out a returnable postcard a few months before these are to be printed to see who wants a copy and cut down on cost for themselves and consumers. But maybe that is just me.
I like this idea.
Recycling still needs a lot of energy and causes water and air pollution. It is much easier to sit down and learn how to use your computer than to kill trees just to read some ads
Phone books have their uses, but that use doesn’t include looking up businesses anymore.
If you are baffled by trying to find your local businesses on Google, DON’T use standard Google search, it will cause you nothing but pain. Do what I do — go to Google Maps. Search for your own address, and then use “Search Nearby.” You’ll not only find ONLY local businesses (the results return is limited to the size of your map, so zoom in if you want closer) but you’ll find exactly where they’re located, phone number, and their website if they have one. Plus some consumer review stuff — I find everything this way, from where to have lunch to which plumber to call when my sewer backed up.
You’d think they’d wise up and let people “opt out” of receiving the big yellow book. Save on printing and delivery cost, all that. The trouble is they’re only success in selling advertising is pitching to local businesses that their distribution is “HUGE” (huge the way spam is huge) and that “no one can figure out how to use the internet to find them.” So…y’know, the faster Americans of all ages and backgrounds get fluent with the internet, the sooner they can stop sending me 5-years-worth of fire-starters every year.
My neighbor supports his family selling yellow pages ads, so somebody uses those things. But hey, this is Oregon, where they grow trees like the moon grows rocks.
The moon grows rocks????
Phone book pages make good dish wrapping material, but after a while, you just run out of stuff to wrap. There has GOT to be a better use for resources. Anyone know a way to opt out of phone books?
My city (Ottawa, ON) recently decided to stop distributing these. It’s not even opt-out, it’s opt-in. You can still get a hard copy if you request it. Seems like the best solution, I think.
Every post favoring The Book over The Interweb has either 1) shown user error when constructing proper Boolean (read “Google”) searches or 2) just has a preference. The post about electricity or internet failures is overly dramatic and far from believable. Even homeless people can do FREE searches at their local library. Do you even have phone lines? Hell, why did you spend your precious few moments of Internet time posting on a website that can’t spell Cheeseburger correctly? What business do you conduct way out there in the Boondocks requiring you to select anonymous service providers from a book they paid to appear in? The only reason I can think of for any business person to advertise in such a wasteful and annoying medium is that they just aren’t savvy enough to effectively advertise on the Internet, at a fraction of the cost. And I’m not talking about giant bilboards on the highway here. I’ll take my chances selecting from the Interweb and word of mouth.
it should be illegal to publish a phonebook and deliver without request. if you want to use one as the consumer, you should have to buy the damn thing.
So arrogant. So contemptuous. So wrong.
In these times, phone books are quickly dying. Phone books should only be sent out if someone requests it. Every phone book company around here, and I live in “rural America” have online versions, so why do they still think that everyone wants a hard cover version? I think I have 3 sitting around my place and I rarely use them. I work as a mail carrier and we have at least one that we have to deliver to each and every resident on our routes. They’re a pain in the ass and most people don’t even care. Yeah, it helps pay my pay check, but it’s still stupid.
People who WANT them could request them from their phone companies, there’s no problem with that. But I keep getting them even though the house doesn’t even have a land line any more. I’d love to be able to turn off delivery to my house but there’s simply no way to. It’s a waste of paper.
Yellow Pages > The Internet.
Why? Trolls. That’s why.
LMAO. Win. That’ll do, brettaka, that’ll do…..lol
Also.. “Chipotle, Chicago IL” and similar searches typed into google bring up all the information you could possibly use. EVEN A MAP. Jeez.
This was taken outside of my house. It stayed there for a couple of weeks