Yellow Pages

Bob Smith was the founder of AOL's Digital City, the first nationwide city guide service. Given that ILM is this week in Philadelphia and roughly 10 years have passed since the local Internet city sites started, I thought it would…

Last week I had the opportunity to attend Yellow Pages Today!, hosted by Peter Buxton and Jesper Simonsen in Vienna. The event, titled "Staying Ahead in Search," was well conceived and executed. The hosts often made the point that directories…

Several stories today highlighted the decision by Canada's Yellow Pages Group to increase its cash payout to unit holders in the Yellow Pages Income Trust. This is widely read as a signal the company is moving full speed ahead as…

The person who headed up the 1.1 million-employee BellSystem when it was broken up is a Virginia gentleman by the name of Charles Lee Brown. He retired to Princeton, NJ, and I once asked him why he gave up the…

Here is a quick follow-up on the fallout from the Nov. 1 announcement that the Canadian government will tax income trust dividends. Income trusts had become a popular structure in Canada, and one of the leading trusts is the Yellow…

So, you don't think that phonebooks are a big deal, huh? Well, let's take a look at the incredible noise that Dex caused when it chose to re-scope the Quad-Cities telephone book. The Quad-Cities include Davenport and Bettendorf, IA, and…

The story about Idearc (formerly Verizon Information Services) successfully raising $2.85 billion in high-yield bonds and $6.5 billion of bank debt takes place in an unknown ladies' room. The point of The New York Times column is that big Wall…

As expected, Telecom New Zealand today confirmed that it will sell its Yellow Pages division, Yellow Pages Group, and plans to complete the deal by the end of the year. The sale is expected to command about NZ$1.5 billion (US$1.01…

Just saw this item on the Canadian government's effort to curtail the income trust, which has gained popularity as a structure for Canadian corporations. The government wants to put the brakes on trusts to stem a drop in tax revenues.…

Many of the world's leading directory operations have released their third-quarter and year-to-date earnings, and as usual the results show a mixed picture. We report these in some detail in our Local Media Journal, as well as in summaries that…

In all likelihood, it was just a coincidence. Even if it weren't, it may be the smart thing to do. When I opened my home-delivered edition of The New York Times this morning, out fell a piece of white bond…

There are some interesting bits in this article on Telecom NZ's plans to spin off its Yellow Pages Group business for an estimated NZ$1.7 billion (US$1.1 billion). The telecom is expected to update its plans for the Yellow Pages unit…

Yell Group has hired a new chief marketing officer, Helen Stevenson, a veteran marketing executive with experience in banking and consumer products. Stevenson replaces Anne Franke, the CMO who left the U.K. directory company earlier this year, after serving as…

We recently learned that Telfonos de Mxico (Telmex) has acquired Enlace Spanish Yellow Pages, the largest independent Spanish-language Yellow Pages publisher in the U.S., for an undisclosed price. Telmex, Mexico's leading telecom and owner of that country's dominant Yellow Pages…

Canada's Yellow Pages Group has launched its second hybrid vertical product — a mixture of magazine editorial content and Yellow Pages headings — this one for the family-care vertical. Here is a link to YPG's press release announcing the new…

This just in. Verizon has OK'd the spin-off of its Yellow Pages unit, Verizon Information Services, as a separate public company. We knew this was coming, but now it is official. If you thought Verizon was an unusual name, try…