My Wish for the YP Industry in 2005

My wish for the Yellow Pages industry in the new year is that the leaders of our business do a better job of communicating our value story to the outside world.

In Bambi Francisco's article she seems to assume that everyone is a writer on Internet issues and no one uses the Yellow Pages anymore. This just isn't true. Despite the tremendous increase in online usage throughout 2004 and especially during the holiday shopping season, references to Yellow Pages listings have remained steady.

The Yellow Pages industry is finally working together on syndicated usage (the KN/SRI press release tells the tale), but it is going to take some time before we have enough usable data for the sales force to take into the field. Still, the industry has an impressive return on investment story. Let's not wait for the syndicated usage to get the message out.