Phone books and dinosaurs

I got a note through the letter box earlier this week. "We're sorry, we haven't been able to deliver your phone book, it has been left at the side of your door".

I'm sorry they managed to leave 1,200 pages of dead tree anywhere on my property despite it being too big for my mailbox. I can think of a lot of more productive uses for recycled paper than giving me a book I haven't used this millenium and which is 1,200 pages of junk I can't seem to opt out of. Especially with so many people going ex-directory.

Same goes for Yellow Pages. Please note, I don't want either. The internet does the same job, it's free and is more up to date and has useful stuff like links to the company websites that I can use.

When will the publishing dinosaurs realise that with most people online, it's hardly surprising that use of these publications is dwindling rapidly.

However, paper based Yell is suing Yelowiki, an Internet site that has global listings rather than just those in my locality. Yell, whose site is in fact not mostly yellow at all but if you visit yell.com you'll see it's mostly orange and white, believes that the online and useful Yelowiki site could be confusing customers and damaging the Yell brand.

I know one thing that's good at damaging your brand and that's being agressive towards other businesses and using the courts to force them out of business.

Funny, if the colour yellow was that important to Yell, you'd think it would be the dominant colour on their website.

I don't see how there's any chance of getting the two companies confused. One provides a free international and up to date service, the other is losing business and enjoys strong arm litigation.

Alternatively, you can view the other differences here.