Cameron Woodward

Here’s a photo set of a resource that was once invaluable to both consumers and vendors; the Yellow Pages. Seth Godin told me that the Yellow Pages used to be so powerful for a business that yellow phones would be installed into a merchants company so that the owner could see just how much direct business was being forwarded via the all-powerful pages.

Ask yourself the question, when was the last time you reached into your dusty cabinet and thumbed through to find a place to eat, or get an oil change versus thumbing through your iPhone or Android to find the location, reviews, and precise GPS directions?

My neighbors have learned (after years of being exposed to commercials and banner ads) to completely ignore this big book of advertisements, a once powerful and valued business like the Yellow Pages has been rendered completely useless by the web –

Yellow Pages has two options:

Be the biggest.

Be the smallest.

The first option is almost immediately out the window, it’s called Yelp/Google. Yellow Pages lost when they had the resources and leverage yet kept from acting and innovating.

The second option is to be the smallest most exclusive, difficult, and high end guide to advertise with – building scarcity builds an audience. There is a secret bar in my neighborhood in San Diego, you need a code to get in – speak easy style. If I could only access this privileged information through Yellow Pages it would never be left sitting outside of my house for weeks.

It’s a different approach, different model, and different business; but the alternative is extinction; the Yellow Pages model is dead, dead, dead. I watched it starve to death outside of my door trying to get in.        

If its time to have a business vision for the new world we’re entering into – the time is now.

Note, the pictures of the Yellow Pages we’re taken over the span of three weeks. Really, its true, my neighbors didn’t even care enough about the Yellow Pages to even find the energy to throw them away.