DISQUS

I'm not sure 14 billion look-ups in the just the print products last year would be considered "dying".

Third party research still shows that 85% of adults use the print books at least once a year. No doubt we all spend a lot of time online "browsing" things, but "buyers" are still turning to the print Yellow Pages when it's time to buy -- that's why so many are being printed -- people use them.

If you're not using a book, why not?? They have coupons, maps, special sections and and government information. They don't require any power when not in use. No special connections, software, or tech knowledge. You really should check one out. I won't tell your friends.

And if you hadn't noticed, Mr. Gates skills at projecting things is pretty poor: http://www.yptalk.com/archive.cfm?ID=286&Ca...

just goes to show you why you can't believe everything you read on the Internet. Your statistics on the Yellow Pages industry use of trees for its paper (and the other stats you quote) are incorrect.

Go here for how their paper is actually made: http://www.yptalk.com/archive.cfm?ID=322&Ca...

While it may fit your agenda for selling SEO/SEM services, the reality is the Yellow Pages industry doesn’t knock down any trees for its paper!!! Let me repeat that – they don’t need to cut any trees for their paper supply. Currently, on average, most publishers are using about 40% recycled material (from the newspapers and magazines you are recycling curbside), and the other 60% comes from wood chips and waste products of the lumber industry. If you take a round tree and make square or rectangular lumber from it, you get plenty of chips and other waste. Those by-products make up the other 60% of the raw material needed. Note that these waste products created in lumber milling would normally end up in landfills. Not only that, as wood chips decompose, they emit methane, a greenhouse gas closely associated with global warming.

just used the print Yellow Pages the other day to find a specialty equipment rental place locally. Took about 1 minute compared with over 5 minutes of useless clicking around the Net

Micheal:

The 13 billion references come from people like me that use the products several times over the course of the year.

Doug:
Craigslist? what a wonderful trust worth source for information. There's been no issues with that site has there?

Paddu:
only 10-20% use books?? Try 85+% at least once a year.

just used the book the other day to find a local vendor to replace a cracked windshield

perhaps the 18-34 subset has never had a reason to you use the print YP. Case in point: Case in point – my 26 year old son, one of those people under 30 who you say never use the Yellow Pages, buys his first home. He asks me to come help him fix a old floor. We rip up the old wood floor to find all kinds of leftover glue and crap still on the slab. After 10 minutes of trying to scraping this stuff away, I know this is going to take the rest of the weekend on my hands and knees to get this done – and that’s not my version of a great weekend. My son runs upstairs, fires up his pc, and starts searching. 10 minutes later he is no closer to a solution then when he started. I grab his print YP and in one minute I’m talking to a local equipment rental shop that has a special buffer with a steel wool pad on the bottom that is perfect for the job. Problem solved.

Those books you don't used were actually referenced nearly 14 billion times last year. You don't use a book? Never? Why not? 87% said they used it at least once last year.

Munhall doesn't recycle paper?? Suggest you go visit your local government then. Recycled paper is a huge money maker for local governments.

One correction to all of your commentary: the YP print industry DOES NOT knock down any trees for their paper. When you take a round tree to mill it for lumber you get more than enough by-products which when combined with 40%+ recycled content gives them all the paper they need....