(by Peter Krasilovsky): Yellow Pages executives speaking at the Yellow Pages Integrated Media Association meeting March 8-9 in San Diego said new channels such as the Internet and wireless add up to overall growth for their content.
“We’ve started to put it to bed that we’re in a declining usage environment,” said incoming YPIMA Chairman Geo Burnett, who is President and CEO of Dex Media. Burnett noted that during the past several years, the Yellow Pages usage index has gone to 106 percent, while newspapers, television and radio have fallen from 100 percent to 94 percent.
Wireless access of Yellow Pages was not a major topic at the meeting. But wireless Yellow Pages distributor Go2 Systems says it now has 750,000 users for its service, which goes out to customers of Verizon, Sprint, Nextel , Cingular and AT&T Wireless. Restaurants and movies are especially popular, says Go2 President Lee Hancock. “And we’re still under the radar.”
That may change soon. Kathy Harless, President, Information Services at Verizon Communications, said that the company has been recently very focused on reaching out to 18-24 year olds and that wireless content plays a key role in that effort. Much of their usage is very sensitive to time of day, she said. “They’re using wireless after 5 pm,” she says. “They want to know where to find bars and nightclubs. That’s a whole lot different than what we’ve seen.”
Jim Lanzone, Senior VP, Product Management for AskJeeves, predicts that wireless access for directory information will become even more the norm as search taxonomies and the accuracy of phone number retrieval improves. “54 percent of search are unsuccessful today,” he noted. Lanzone said that Jeeves’ SmartSearch feature
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