There are other ways of finding somebody other than the fone book. For example, if you want to get in touch with Sitre Magana, you don't need a fone book, just go to the Post Office and look for the fat ass in the wheelchair who is pounding his pud while staring at an ugly chick in front of him who he thinks is his girlfriend Dori.
OT
The phone books have been getting smaller. With the yellow pages, I figure most places are still in business but they have moved their advertising elsewhere.
But with the white pages, I'm not so sure. The new book is 1/3 smaller than the book 1 or 2 years ago. If they've just made their numbers unpublished, I want to keep the book so I will still have their numbers. But if they've abandoned their wired phones for cell phones, there is no point to keeping the book.
Why is the White Pages 1/3 shorter than it was? How much is unpublished and how much is just gone?
Thank you.
OT
The phone books have been getting smaller. With the yellow pages, I figure most places are still in business but they have moved their advertising elsewhere.
But with the white pages, I'm not so sure. The new book is 1/3 smaller than the book 1 or 2 years ago. If they've just made their numbers unpublished, I want to keep the book so I will still have their numbers. But if they've abandoned their wired phones for cell phones, there is no point to keeping the book.
Why is the White Pages 1/3 shorter than it was? How much is unpublished and how much is just gone?
Thank you.
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white pages haven't shrunk around these parts. IS your city shrinking maybe?
I have some idea about your white pages shrinking. new area codes means they streamlined the numbers into the proper books. there has been such a proliferation of area codes recently. perhaps instead of one big book they have 3 smaller ones?
Also maybe they shrunk the font in the pages to save money on paper. The same number of phone numbers but printed smaller and more condensed to use less paper and printing costs?
No, the city is a little smaller but this covers the surrounding area too and together they're the same or bigger. I'll check again if it covers the exact same area (the YP sometimes only covers the west half of the area.)
Good ideas, I"ll check all these things this weekend.
Although Smitty's statistic might account for it.
Although Smitty's statistic might account for it.
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After reading Smitty's post maybe you are right and the phonebook is shrinking and I just live in a fast growing county. My county just got a
4th area code.
You have white pages? Here in Tulsa AT&T dropped the white pages completely. Now all we have is the colored pages. I would say yellow pages, but we also have blue pages. Anyway AT&T says most people are using the internet phone books, so they aren't printing them any more.
Bill
In news: snipped-for-privacy@4ax.com, mm typed: :: OT :: :: The phone books have been getting smaller. With the :: yellow pages, I figure most places are still in business :: but they have moved their advertising elsewhere. :: :: But with the white pages, I'm not so sure. The new book :: is 1/3 smaller than the book 1 or 2 years ago. If :: they've just made their numbers unpublished, I want to :: keep the book so I will still have their numbers. But if :: they've abandoned their wired phones for cell phones, :: there is no point to keeping the book. :: :: Why is the White Pages 1/3 shorter than it was? How much :: is unpublished and how much is just gone? :: :: Thank you.
It's often a case of font size and how close they put text to the edges of the pages. The text is so small I can barely read the one just delivered!.
HTH,
Twayne`
We used to have blue pages, but this year they were grey pages. Probably because they can be printed with black iink and they don't have to set up for blue.
I don't use the phone book much, but if they give me one, I'm going to keep it.
For a while I thought about keeping old ones to have the numbers of those who changed to unpublished numbers.
There was one guy, a populoar tv sportscaster, whose name was just 4 names from my girlfriend at the time. When I looked her number up a few years later, his name was gone (even though he's still on tv here). If I'd saved the old phone book, I'd still have his number. But otoh, I have no reason to call him.
Since you seem to have a computer and internet access (you posted this), why do you even access a paper phone book anymore? It's all on the internet. In a few years, phone books will probably cease to exist.
Because flipping through a paper phone book is usually faster? Especially if I don't happen to be sitting at a turned-on computer?
But either dead-tree or virtual, phone books are getting close to useless, since cell phone numbers aren't included. Side rant, when did Google basically kill their reverse lookup function? Even if you drill down to it, it almost never gets a hit, even for known good numbers. That was a very handy tool, and I miss it a lot. (ie, browsing on CL, I could just highlight the number, left-click in FF, and see how far away it was.) Did all the commercial sites bitch too hard they they were stealing business from them?
I think we have been through every permutation here. First there were the books printed in "microtype" by someone cluelessly cutting corners. Then there were the plastic bags with three individual books. Then the incumbent carrier only delivered non white pages books and then quit. Last month three huge books were delivered. One from the incumbent carrier who we have no relationship with and two others from companies I never heard of.
I wish they would stop. I don't want or use phone books.
Well, here in Tulsa we do get 3 phone books, at different time, by different companies. Since I have no use for more than one I just grab the extras and haul them off to the recyclers when I am going in that general direction.
Yes here in Tulsa we have one public recycling center that will take phone books. All of them do in November, which is when AT&T delivers theirs.
Bill
I'm glad you asked.
They won't cease because I'll save the last ones they give me!
Actually you can't tell as much from most internet listings as you can from the yellow pages**. When they are by categories, they usually include anything remotely related to the category, so if I needed someone to do something, they would also list a company that sold supplies related to that, or barely related to that. **Unless you go to the web page of each listing, which often requires going to google to find the webpage. In certain categories, not everyone has a webpage. My friend's ministorage has no webpage, just a yellow page entry, and they mostly depend on word of mouth and people driving by and are usually fully rented.
When I needed a chimney sweep, I totally passed by the leading sweep in my area becausee the company name was Buttons and Cromwell, and it said nothing about chimney sweeeping. I told him that when I talked to him, but they have enough business they may not change anything. (later I had happened to see one of his trucks with the drawing of a sweep on the side)
In a Yellow Pages, they would likely have had a small, or large. display ad nearby, with "See display ad on page 309" right under the line that refers to them. At the least, their name would have been in bold letters.
Plus you can look at a whole 2 pages at the same time, 200+ listings, and even if there are display ads 40 or 50 or more.
Plus for some reason, when I tried to find a medical specialist in yahoo.local.com, it says there are none near me, no matter what specialty or what zip code I put in. And no, I'm not going to hire a doctor by picking a name out of the phone book. What I do sometimes is call a doctor, a GP or a type of specialist, and ask him to refer me to someone else. I figure other doctors know who is good, or at least who is not, better than those Rate your Doctor sites, where they rate them on Did he keep me waiting, was he friendly. I don't care too much about those things, just will he be right or wrong.
You still get white pages? We haven't seen a new white pages in several years.
They will stop the yellow pages when they can no longer profitably sell advertising in them.
Phone books have changed a lot over the last ten years. Ten years ago, we were putting 13 times the laden weight of the Titanic in landfills every year in phone books alone.
Advertising has gone Internet. We will always have the phone books, only they had it so good for so long that they left a bad taste in their customer's mouths. Like, we're the only Yellow Pages, so we don't have to care. Then that was busted, and different "versions" of the yp and wp could be published with no copyright infringement. But for today's advertising, everyone goes to computers, and now they've been put into the hands of people.
People can now download coupons, deals of the day, maps, instant cell or messaging. A couple of light years ahead of what a phone line and automated answer device can do.
The best markets for phone books right now are the smaller towns and cities, like approximately 25k people and under. They are still the way small towns do business, and there is good profitability there.
But the old days of the big boys are gone.
SteveB
Heart surgery pending? Read up and prepare. Download the book $10
I'm not sure when I got the previous one. Let me go look..... ..... .... .. It's dated March 2007 so it's 4 or 5 years old. My current one says March 2011 - 2012, but the old one gives only one year. I guess the start year so it's 4 years old.
And yes, the font of the new one is smaller. I shoudl have noticed that.
And there are four colunms per page, instead of 5 like before. I guess they figured out that with the smaller font, there would be many fewer two line entries so a net savings.
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