Twice a year, it seems, I come home to a huge stack of bound yellow paper booklets which I unwrap from its cellophane shrink-wrap and promptly put into the recycle bin.
They call them "Yellow Pages."
With the recent news that Yellow Pages publisher Idearc has a total of $9 billion in debt, it appears that task is soon to come to an end.
Formed in 1878, telephone phonebooks are only good to stack behind a steering wheel so Bobby can learn to drive. Like JC Penney, the Yellow Pages were born somewhere in Wyoming. It looks like the least populous state better start banking more on its celebrity ranchers.
Even more on deathwatch are yellow pages cousin, the "white pages." My cellphone contains all the phone numbers I need. Like many people, I don't even know my girlfriend's number. Hell, I don't even know my mom's. White pages, a directory of landlines, are quite unuseful. Even a reverse phone number lookup on whitepages.com finds no hope for looking up cellphone #s.
Such a look-up does work on Google, however.
For future generations, the white pages will be quite odd. "You mean there was a giant book that had everyone's telephone number? Available to the anyone?" Timeless telephone crank calls will be nothing but a funny memory. Even most links in this page of prank call websites are dead, after all.
Much to the pleasure of Michael Hunt's everywhere.
You are a bit misinformed about the availability of cell phone numbers on WhitePages. There are a rapidly increasing number of cell phones finding their way on to their website. They allow members to add and in the future edit their own listings. People add cell numbers, email addresses and they even have the option to text message a person from the site without ever revealing their cell number.
ReplyDeleteYou should look deeper, you would be surprised what the WhitePages is becoming. They also have cell phone aps for smart phones like the new G1 phone and iPhone.
-trenoops