I decided to “Google” Santa. After about 10 to 15 minutes I’ve found just what I want and have ordered it for delivery to my house within seven days.

That’s the future of shopping to a large extent like it or not.

The transition to the digital market place is happening irrespective of how much thought Peter would like to give to the issue.

I fully appreciate the amount of government information available online. Which beggars belief that so many government agencies are still slave to the old perspectives?

Print has not risen with digital. Some print companies have embraced the new technologies and are profiting from it whilst many more are still fighting a belated rearguard action against modernity.

The printed guide is invariably out of date before it’s delivered. It’s nonsense to suggest they are more relevant.
Yellow Pages might well be delivered to 97% of households and businesses. The important point is how many recipients actually use it, nowadays not that many.

Yellow Pages is not the only way the public gets government information. Quite the opposite if it has gone to the recycling plant. The easiest way to get government information is through the internet.

The fact that apparently so many businesses display the logo proves the point as to how out of touch some business leaders and so called marketing directors are.

The bit about the plumber is intriguing. What decade does Peter inhabit? Recently we moved office and acquired all our services through the internet without any problem. So much easier than thumbing through pages of entries many of which have moved or gone out of business.

As far as reliability and ethics are concerned I would refer you to the used car sales in any YP.

Picking up a book over a cup of coffee…how many arms have you got?

Your comments prove the case for me. Yellow Pages are no longer as relevant as was the case a few years ago. That applies to business to business or the general public. Yell.com is a different matter.

I simply think that Peter is totally out of touch. Presumably Peter would think it’s OK to use a horse and cart for deliveries?

The author doesn’t appreciate the amount of government information and services that are now online.

And Yellow Pages is not the dying beast he might think it it.

There has been a print paradox going on in the market place. Print has risen in line with digital.

And there is a very simple reason for this.

When you have 50 million or so digital platforms trying to compete with each other, the printed guide that sorts information both locally and nationally for you, this is of more relevance.

Yellow Pages, I understand, goes into circa 97 per cent of households. The internet doesn’t. In fact there are reckoned to be well over 20 million people who do not have access to the internet.

The only way you can guarantee that the public gets the government information they are entitled to is through publications such as Yellow Pages.

That is why large national companies use the Yellow Pages logo in the corner of their TV ads.

There is also the problem of inconvenience. If you want a local plumber, you can go into the office, turn the computer on, wait for it to boot up. Then type in the word plumber and get 300 zillion hits.

Then you have to plough through all the junk and misleading sites and maybe find something that is a scam.

YP publishes trusted information that is presented ethically.

People want information they can rely on.

You also have the option of picking up the book over a cup of coffee and finding that local service right away and seeing everything that is on offer, not imcomplete listings you get on the www.

Which method is the least time consuming?