Creator of "Walking Fingers" Dies at 83

Stephen Baker, who created the "Let your fingers do the walking" ad campaign for the Yellow Pages and advised readers on how to live with a neurotic dog, died in Manhattan on Sept. 13. He was 83.

The cause was cancer of the gastrointestinal tract, his son, Scott, said.

As an art director for the advertising agency Cunningham & Walsh and later as founder of his own firms, Mr. Baker tried to create sassy ads that steered clear of the hard sell.

For one commercial in the "Let your fingers do the walking" campaign to promote AT&T's Yellow Pages, a woman's well-manicured hand saunters down a street, its long red fingernails resembling high heels. AT&T used the slogan for at least six years, and it is still used by other phone directories, according to the Yellow Pages Association.

"Baker was part of what was then known as the creative revolution," said Fred Danzig, a former editor of Advertising Age. "He was one of the people who I suppose you might say was at the forefront of it."

Dex and Interland Team Up

Looks like the folks at Dex Media (The former Qwest Dex, the former US West Dex) are moving more heavily into offering web services.

Dex has been a very solid player offering a variety of internet advertising options to its print advertisers. In my experience, the Dex folks are pretty savvy about the services they offer.


Interland to Partner with Dex Media; Yellow Pages Leader's Sales Force to offer Interland Web Services Under the Dex Web Clicks Product Line Name
StockHouse U.S. Thu, 23 Sep 2004 6:05 AM PDT
Interland (Nasdaq: INLD), a leading provider of Web hosting and online services for small and medium businesses, today announced it completed a new channel distribution agreement with Dex Media, Inc. (NYSE:DEX), a leading provider of directory advertising and online advertisi ng services.

Good Article on RHD acquisition of DonTech

This is a particularly well written article about the benefits RH Donnelly will reap from the acquisition of their joint partnership with SBC.

By moving from a sales force for hire to a publisher, RHD will be in a much stronger position to leverag the business in ways that it couldn't in the past.

It's way better to be a publisher than a salesman.

Ask Jeeves adds local Yellow Pages listings

Ask Jeeves is an interesting company. Even though they only command 1.9% of the search market, they still generate many times the number of lookups than all of the IYPs combined.

It looks like the YP content is supplied by CitySearch, which is interesting to me. In the past, Verizon has outbid everyone else to place their listings (and especially ads) on distribution partners.

Local advertisers should give CitySearch a closer look as a potential destination for their ads. CitySearch has very good content, and since they don't have a sizable salesforce, most of their categories are without advertising.

Canadian Yellow Pages group listings to appear on Google

News - canada.com network

This is the first instance I've seen of a Yellow Pages publisher actually providing the listings directly to Google. I noted that it was only listings, and not the ad content.

This is probably similar to the deal thhat Google struck with Axciom for their business and residential listings data in the US.

Currently, yellow pages publishers are in a unique position because they provide turn key directory advertising to the millions of local businesses. More and more, I'm seeing that YP publishers will try to become full service providers of web advertising products.

Man, I LOVE this business!

Dick

Shaping Your Company's Perception

Here's an excellent article by Matt Michel of the
Service Roundtable.

*****

PERCEPTION PART II

I was discussing a couple of different local
businesses with a friend.

It was amazing how differently we perceived the two
businesses. We had diametrically opposed experiences
with each of the businesses. Since our perceptions
were based on personal experience, they were rock
solid
and unlikely to change. But what about a business
where neither of us has a base of personal knowledge
and experience?

When personal experience is lacking, perception is
driven by marketing absent word-of-mouth. Even with
word-of-mouth, perception may be drive by marketing.
If someone talked with me and my friend, our
recommendations would counter each other, leaving the
consumer confused.

Perceptions vary widely, depending upon what is
revealed. This is one of the worst hurricane seasons
in years. I remember getting zapped by Hurricane Erin
a few years ago. We were forced to evacuate our
family’s condo on Pensacola Beach. When we finally
got back on the island, there were two or three homes
with severe damage and two or three thousand with
minor damage or no damage whatsoever. All in all,
Erin was a
relatively mild hurricane, but that’s not the message
the nation received.

Guess where all of the television cameras were
clustered? You got it.

They were pointed at the most damaged building on
Santa Rosa Island. While Erin was a tragedy for the
owners of a few homes, it was an inconvenience for
most of us. But that wasn’t the perception.

Perception shifts based on presentation, sometimes
dramatically. It’s not merely accentuating the
negative, but the positive, a uniqueness, or anything
else you want.

Like a video guy once told me, “It’s not what it is,
but what it seems to be.” Let me illustrate…

We all now that actors like Danny Devito and Michael J
Fox are short, but maybe not how short. Devito is 5’
tall. That’s it. Five feet. Sixty inches. By
comparison, Michael J Fox is a towering 5’ 4”. But
then, we knew they were vertically challenged. What
about some of the other actors?

Wait! If you’re vertically challenged and easily
offended, my advice is to stop reading now, or at
least wait until the end before you flame me. There
is a marketing message in here.

Back to the actors. Burt Reynolds is average size,
right? Uh, guess again. Old Burt is only 5’ 7”. I
wonder if that is with or without the toupee?

By Hollywood standards Burt might be average. He’s
the same height as Sylvester “Rambo” Stallone, Tom
Cruise, and Martin Sheen (though Martin Sheen’s claims
to be 5’ 10” – purportedly confirmed by Dan Rather and
various CBS experts).

What about some real tough guys? Jean-Claude Van
Damme and Mel Gibson are 5’ 8”.

Tall, dark, and handsome Antonio Banderas is 5’ 9”.
Tall, dark, and handsome? Maybe if you round up.

Banderas actually is the average male height, though
I’m starting to suspect the average was computed by
another CBS expert source who, er, came up a little
short. Other “average” height actors include Matt
“Bourne” Damon, Michael “Romancing the Stone” Douglas,
Morgan “Alex Cross” Freeman, Paul “Cool Hand” Newman,
and Robert “The Natural” Redford.

As someone who’s a very average 6’ 2” (actually, I’m a
little short for my weight), I would consider all of
those guys short, but that’s not how they appear on
film. I don’t know if they wear lifts or just make
sure their leading ladies are even shorter, but it
seems to me that every one of these actors seems
taller. In fact, if someone would have told me they
were all 6 foot, it would have been plausible.

Perception can cause people to perceive a short actor
to be a tall.

That’s a far harder task than creating a perception of
expertise in certain areas, a perception of superior
service, a perception of trustworthiness, and so on.

Here’s the main point. You can shape the public
perception of your company. You can do it through the
way you present your company with your trucks, in your
ads, through your uniforms, in your literature, with
your direct mail, and so on.

So far, so good. Just remember that at some point
consumers will actually encounter your company. And
then, the reality better match the perception. Just
like it would be impossible for Martin Sheen to hide
the fact he’s a short guy with a big mouth and even
bigger ego if you met him in person, it will be
impossible for your company to hide the fact that your
service is short of the perception you’ve created.

Fortunately, most of us will never meet Martin Sheen.
Even more fortunately, lots of people will meet your
company.

Make sure you never come up short.

© 2004 Matt Michel


Celebrity Heights

5’ 0”
Danny Devito
Paul Williams

5’ 3”
Elton John

5’ 4”
Frankie Muniz
Michael J. Fox

5’ 5”
Sean Astin

5’ 7”
Burt Reynolds
Martin Sheen
Sylvester Stallone
Tom Cruise

5’ 8”
Humphrey Bogart
James Dean
Jean-Claude Van Damme
Marlon Brando
Mel Gibson
Robert Conrad
Robin Williams

5’ 9”
Antonio Banderas
Bill Pullman
Jack Nicholson
Matt Damon
Michael Douglas
Morgan J. Freeman
Paul Newman
Richard Burton
Robert De Niro
Robert Downey Jr
Robert Redford

5’ 10”
Kiefer Sutherland
Wesley Snipes

5’ 11”
Brad Pitt
Kurt Russell

6’ 0”
Dan Aykroyd
Leonardo DiCaprio

6’ 2”
Gene Hackman
John Goodman

6’ 4”
Clint Eastwood
John Wayne
Tom Selleck

6’ 5”
Chuck Connors
Forrest Tucker
Jon Voight
Lou Ferrigno
Raymond Burr

6’ 6”
Hulk Hogan

How many of these were a surprise? Try this one…


Politician Heights

5’ 3”
Nikita Khrushchev

5’ 6”
Joseph Stalin
Martin Luther King
Winston Churchill

5’ 8”
Adolf Hitler
Joe Lieberman

5’ 9”
Dwight D. Eisenhower
Jimmy Carter

5’ 10”
Wesley Clark

5’ 11”
George W. Bush

6’ 0”
John Edwards
John F. Kennedy
Tony Blair

6’ 1”
Al Gore
Lloyd Bentsen
Ronald Reagan

6’ 2”
Bill Clinton
Gerald Ford
Saddam Hussein

6’ 4”
John Kerry

6’ 5”
Bill Bradley

Beware short totalitarians.


*****

Source: Comanche Marketing. Reprinted by permission.
Free subscriptions are available at:

www.serviceroundtable.com -- click on the Comanche
Marketing tab

Copyright © 2004 Matt Michel

*****

Using Phone Numbers as Domain Names

I have seen this from a number of companies in the
past, and have wondered exactly how valuable something
like this would be. Most people know names of
companies rather than phone numbers.

From the infocommerce report
http://infocommercereport.com

ENUM, an initiative we first reported on in March
2001, seems to be finally picking up steam. Originally
spearheaded by VeriSign and Telcordia Technologies ,
the initiative attempts to bridge the Internet,
Phones, Fax and Wireless with a single contact address
-- your phone number. The UK Government is seriously
involved in efforts to stimulate the growth of ENUM in
the United Kingdom , adding to a general
endorsement of ENUM by the U.S. Department of Commerce
last year.

In essence, ENUM is a distributed database that
translates telephone numbers to IP addresses, which
means that phone numbers could be used in place of, or
in addition to, domain names. Currently, when you
enter www.infocommercereport.com into your browser,
Domain Name Servers (DNS) perform a lookup up on that
name, find that it is associated with a specific IP
address, and take your browser there. ENUM works
identically, and is actually integrated into the
existing DNS infrastructure.

Interestingly, ENUM can do more than a one-to-one
translation to an IP address. It can also link to
email addresses, instant messaging identities and
cell phone numbers. It's also important to note that
ENUM is designed to be queried by machines as well as
humans, meaning that all sorts of interesting
applications to perform seamless communications are
likely to emerge, not the least of which might be
streamlining voice over IP (VoIP) call connection.

A lot of governments seem excited about ENUM as a way
to bridge the wired phone network with the Internet.
Needless to say, the usual suspects in the domain
registration space are all circled around ENUM, hoping
to become the central registration, and hoping to tap
into all the associated registration fees.


Fees? Well, somebody has to pay for all this somehow,
and the current notion seems to be to use the existing
model for domain registration. And with all those
millions of consumers out there hankering for ENUM,
revenues could be huge.

Consumers? Hankering? Here we go again. Develop a new
technology, and everybody immediately assumes a
consumer market exists, primarily because they want a
consumer market to exist. After all, there are far
more consumers than businesses out there. Businesses
want to be contacted, and they want to make the
contact process as simple as possible. Is the same
true of consumers? Will millions of them rush out to
link and expose all their electronic contact data in a
searchable public database? I suspect that caution
will figure into this at some point.

As to hankering, I have to ask, just as I did with the
national cell phone directory: does the market really
want this? It's a huge issue, because not just revenue
is at stake, but the ability to achieve a critical
mass of listings, without which nobody will bother to
use ENUM, and the whole initiative will collapse. Too
much ambition and greed too early means the almost
certain death of ENUM.

Governments are behind ENUM in the general belief that
it will lead to technological progress, and hey,
they're not paying for it (and they may well tax it).
The big companies involved in ENUM see big profit
opportunities, although ENUM has all the
characteristics of technology in search of an
application. And unlike directory assistance and the
white pages, there's no opportunity to impose
"unlisted number" fees because the database does not
exist, and it depends on consumers to populate it.
It will be interesting to see how ENUM evolves, but in
my opinion, success will depend on scaling it down
before ramping it up.

Why Newspapers and Directories Just Don't Mix

This interesting report from InfoCommerce. I should
point out that my company has purchased a number of
directories from newspaper publishers such as the New
York Times. Also, Hearst has had a successful, albeit
very regional success with their ownership of
Associated Publishing in west Texas.

Here's the article . . .

Just weeks after noting the newspaper industry's
on-again off-again love affair with yellow pages, I
see an announcement by Hearst that it's acquiring
White Directories, one of the nation's largest
independent yellow pages publishers, and that White
will become part of the Hearst newspaper group.

Is this a case of another newspaper publisher getting
an expensive and painful lesson that local ad sales
expertise and local directory ad sales expertise are
not synonymous? Perhaps not. I spent some time
flipping between a list of markets served by White and
markets served by the Hearst newspapers, and found
very little overlap. What we probably have here is
Hearst making an investment in a growing and
dependable stream of profits, just like the bevy of
private equity funds that have discovered the yellow
pages industry over the past few years.

So why don't newspapers and directories mix?

The primary problem is that directory salespeople
aren't like other salespeople, and I offer that
observation as high praise. There was a time when it
was widely believed that yellow pages salespeople,
particularly those with the benefit of Donnelley sales
training, were among the best salespeople in the media
business. But that's not the same as saying they could
sell any medium equally well. Directory salespeople
are indeed a breed apart, and the general experience
to date is that they don't do well selling other forms
of media. It's not for lack of yellow pages publishers
trying to make it so. Part of this is a natural
salesperson's tendency to focus on what they know best
and are making money at today.

But the larger issue is that the directory sale is
almost totally opposite to the sale of most other
media. With yellow pages you sell retention,
discovery, saturation distribution and response. Add
in an annual frequency and rates so high they have to
be expressed in terms of the monthly cost, and you can
start to see the challenge. Yellow pages salespeople
can't sell newspaper ads, and newspaper people can't
sell yellow pages ads. That's why the potential sales
synergy that looks good on paper has never worked in
reality.

Consider too the cultural divide. Newspapers provide
important news and have a strong and proud
journalistic tradition. They sell subscriptions and
they sell advertising. Yellow pages sell advertising
and give their publications away. In the yellow pages
business, the advertising is the content. That's
simple to say, but hard to absorb, particularly if you
grew up in the newspaper business. Add into the mix
that yellow pages and newspapers have different
pre-press needs, are manufactured differently and
distributed differently, and you knock out loads more
potential synergy.

Finally, there is the "grass is greener" issue. When
newspapers look enviously at yellow pages, they look
at the market leaders, the Verizons of the world. But
when they finally take the plunge and buy yellow
pages, they buy independent publishers, the scrappy
competitors, the "we try harder" publishers. Nothing
wrong with that, as these independents can be both
large and profitable. But what it does mean is an even
greater emphasis on advertising sales in a highly
competitive, take no prisoners environment. That can
be a real eye-opener for newspapers, many of which
operate with effectively no competition.

Do yellow pages publishers make great media investment
vehicles? Yes. Should they be acquired by newspapers
to build "a highly synergistic, integrated local media
advertising platform" (I just made this up, but
doesn't it sound so ... plausible?). No.

FAST preps app to improve Internet yellow pages

By Juan Carlos Perez, IDG News Service September 02,
2004

Fast Search & Transfer ASA has developed an
application designed to help providers of online
business directories and of online classified
advertisements improve the content, presentation and
navigation of their listings, the company announced
Thursday.

The application, called Fast AdVisor, is aimed at
online publishers of the type of business directory
information commonly found in phone books' yellow
pages and in similar but more focused
industry-specific catalogues of companies. It is also
targeted at providers of online classified ads.

With Fast AdVisor, these providers will be able to
move beyond listings that carry basic information --
business name, phone number and address, in the case
of a yellow pages publisher -- and offer other
relevant and more targeted information by pulling data
from a variety of databases belonging both to the
publisher and to third parties.

Moreover, Fast AdVisor will improve navigation of
query results by segmenting them into categories and
allowing users to drill down into them and sort them
in a variety of ways, including the ability to narrow
searches based on geographic locations, a feature that
is the latest rage in the Internet search market.

"Fast AdVisor lets publishers take the directory
listings they have and integrate them with (structured
and) unstructured data from their advertisers' Web
sites or from other content (sources) and integrate it
all into a single results page the end-user would
get," said David Isaacson, senior product marketing
manager at Fast. "The other key part is the navigation
experience. When you go to a site and you do a search,
what you get back isn't just 1,000 listings of what
matched your query, but also the categories they fall
into."

By improving both the content, presentation and
navigation of its listings, a publisher would make its
site more attractive both to Web surfers seeking
business-directory or classified-ad information and to
advertisers seeking a place to list their business or
run their classified ads, he said.

Fast AdVisor also contains technology for determining
the relevance of query results and thus establish
rankings accordingly. It also supports multiple
languages, detects synonyms and checks spellings. It
can pull information from 225 data formats. Finally,
it has administrative functions for the IT department
to manage it, according to Fast, based in Oslo,
Norway.

While the market for enterprise search software is
getting crowded, this Fast AdVisor application is so
far unique because it targets the specific underserved
segment of e-directories and online classified ads,
said Niki Scevak, a Jupiter Research analyst. "A very
interesting thing is the industry they're targeting
with this product," he said.

While general-interest search engines such as the ones
from Yahoo Inc. and Google Inc. have improved over the
past few years, becoming useful tools for Web surfers
and attractive platforms for advertisers, the
technology powering e-directories is lagging behind,
preventing these publishers from taking full advantage
of the online advertising market powered by Internet
searches, Scevak said.

"Many of the Internet yellow pages and local search
sites are based on very arcane technology," Scevak
said. "Obviously, the business model developed around
search the past few years is directly applicable to
Internet yellow pages and e-directory types of
business. So what you have is a business model for
these companies to charge advertisers, but at the same
time where we are in terms of offerings at the moment
is very immature technology and sites."

"The product Fast is launching is all about
integrating multiple sources of data, whether that be
Web content, internal databases of the e-directory
publisher and so on. It's really the growing up of the
technology for that particular sector," Scevak added.

Fast AdVisor is available now and starts "at the low
six figures," the company's Isaacson said, meaning
upwards of $100,000. Fast AdVisor is based on Fast
ESP, the company's enterprise search platform.

Hearst Buys White Directories

 

 

THE HEARST CORPORATION AGREES TO PURCHASE WHITE DIRECTORY PUBLISHERS, INC.

 

 

NEW YORK, September 2, 2004—The Hearst Corporation today agreed to purchase White Directory Publishers, Inc., the fourth-largest independent yellow pages publisher in the United States. The announcement was made by Victor F. Ganzi, president and Chief Executive Officer of The Hearst Corporation, and George B. Irish, president of Hearst Newspapers. The transaction is expected to close on or about September 30, 2004.

 

White Directory Publishers, based in Buffalo, New York, publishes 56 directories in 11 states, with a combined distribution of more than 8 million copies. A family owned and operated company, White Directory Publishers was founded in 1968 by Wilbur D. Lewis and has since built a solid foundation of successful directories through launches and strategic acquisitions.

 

According to industry research, the domestic yellow pages industry generated revenues of approximately $15 billion in 2003, with independent publishers garnering 13.5% of the market, up from 7% in 1998. The Hearst Corporation already owns Associated Publishing Company, an independent yellow pages publisher in Texas, which it acquired in 1994.

 

In announcing the purchase, Ganzi said, “Over the past 36 years, the Lewis family and their colleagues at White Directory Publishers have built one of the premier companies in the independent yellow pages publishing industry. We welcome the company’s 730 colleagues to Hearst, and we look forward to their building on this already impressive record of growth and quality service to their customers.”

 

Richard D. Lewis, president and CEO of White Directory Publishers said, “We are very excited about affiliating with Hearst. By combining Hearst’s resources and our experience, we will be able to grow much faster.”

 

Lewis, as well as Mark A. Davis, executive vice president and COO of the company, and Philip M. Corwin, vice president and CFO, will continue to manage White Directory Publishers and will add responsibility for Associated Publishing Company. The combined operations will be part of Hearst’s newspaper group.

 

“Our Associated Publishing Company, under the leadership of Bob Allen, has been highly successful,” Irish said. “Joining forces with White Directory Publishers allows us to increase substantially our presence in one of the fastest growing segments of the media business.”

 

The sellers were represented by Veronis Suhler Stevenson. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.

 

The Hearst Corporation (www.hearst.com) is one of the nation's largest diversified communications companies. Its major interests include magazine, newspaper and business publishing, cable networks, television and radio broadcasting, Internet businesses, television production, newspaper features distribution and real estate.

 

# # #    

 

 

 

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Yellow Pages Commando News by Dick Larkin Disgruntled Advertiser - Part 1 September 2, 2004 ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ -- Disgruntled Advertiser - Part 1 -- My Favorite Book on Yellow Pages -- Answer to Last Week's Brainteaser -- What I Learned in College -- The Ultimate "Dummies" Book -- Homemade Guitar -- All the Cool Guys are Named Dick -- What to Do if Monty Asks You -- Nigerian Restaurant -- Ironman Competition -- This Week's Brainteaser -- Quote of the Week Dear Dick, If you have trouble seeing the photos in this newsletter, simply go to this website. http://ypcommando.blogspot.com You can read the newsletter as a webpage. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm gearing up to begin publishing "This Week in Pictures" an e-zine with funny photos, brainteasers and quotes. It's kind of like the YPcommando without the YP. To get on the list, send an email to photos@ypcommando.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ And now, on with the show . . . Disgruntled Advertiser - Part 1 back to top Forward to a Friend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ A few weeks back, I published a real letter from a disgruntled former Yellow Pages advertiser. Imagine that. He posed several objections that are common to many business people. I asked the subscribers of my Yellow Pages Commando newsletter to send in their responses to his objections. The results were overwhelming. I received over 23 pages of responses! This week, I’ll share with you highlights of the responses to the first objection. Over the coming weeks, I will go through all of the objections. There’s still time to respond. Send your comments to Dick@YPcommando.com. Dear Dick, Obviously, you are sold on the value of yellow pages advertising. So, I must ask your thoughts on the following: I owned a heating and air conditioning company for more than 20 years. Yellow Pages was a terrible headache for me. First, heating and air conditioning were divided headings and I was forced to buy ads under both headings. Second, each ad only generated business on a seasonal basis with few or no calls during the remaining months of the year. Third, calls for repair service on heating and cooling equipment only came in during the hottest or coldest times of the year . . . times when my technicians were already loaded with work. Fourth, calls for quotes on new heating and cooling systems only resulted in a 10% closure rate. It appeared that Yellow Pages inquiries were generally from price shoppers. With all that said, what I want to hear is how I was totally wrong in my opinion and how Yellow Pages advertising could have been a boom to my business. Am I nuts...or what? Richard O. Jacksonville, FL I received responses from Lee Rubner, BellSouth Kristin Salerno, SBC Steve Clark, TransWestern Publishing Rich Hargrave, Ambassador Publishing Terry Pacelli, Haines Directories James Thessen, National Direct Media Services Alan Saltz, Author of "Legal Theft 2.0 - Using Yellow Pages Advertising to Ethically Steal Business from Your Competition" Beverly S. Sundstrom, international Yellow Pages advertising, inc. Drew Cameron, Supernova Selling Systems Adams Hudson, Hudson Ink (marketing consultant to the HVAC trade) Andy Summerlin, DataNational Stephanie Crammond, Deep Data Randy S. Mitchell, Yellow Page Group Eric Groves, Constant Contact You really must read how these enlightened thinkers responded. My Favorite Book on Yellow Pages back to top Forward to a Friend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is my favorite book on Yellow Pages advertising. It helps anyone who relies on the Yellow Pages for customers to design ads that will have the maximum impact. It's specifically targeted to attorneys, but the lessons apply to every Yellow Pages advertiser. I like that it's filled with specific tips that any business owner can immediately use to create advertising that is much more appealing to the precise customers he or she wants. I've had the opportunity to talk with Kerry Randall, the author. He's a delightful guy who approaches Yellow Pages advertising through the eyes of a designer and an advertising agency strategist. Give this book to a friend. Answer to Last Week's Brainteaser back to top Forward to a Friend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Buford is holding something in his hand reciting the following riddle. I started with three and felt a need to cut one off and so I did the deed. To my dismay it fell to the floor, and in my hand I then had four. Cutting another, I did contrive, and in my hand I then had five. Name for me these growing things, and bask in the glory a correct answer brings! See the Answer & Our Celebrity Winner What I Learned in College back to top Forward to a Friend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I didn't get the best grades, but I really picked up some great multitasking skills. ++++++++++++++++ Local search is shaking the YP community by its collective knickers. The single most impactful conference on this technology will be held in that tech mecca of Jersey City. Luckily it's in November so the weather should be nice. groan Interactive Local Media 2004 The Ultimate "Dummies" Book back to top Forward to a Friend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ This is so stupid that it cracks me up. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I'm starting a new newsletter called "This Week in Pictures" that will feature several funny photos, quotes and a brainteaser or two. To subscribe, send an email to photos@ypcommando.com. It will be rated PG-13, and include marginal photos that missed the cut in this newsletter. Not long ago, I found a new crack dealer. Homemade Guitar back to top Forward to a Friend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I thought it would be cool to make my own guitar, but it sounds like crap. Why you shouldn't hire a one-legged kid to mow your grass. All the Cool Guys are Named Dick back to top Forward to a Friend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Any guy named Dick needs a sense of humor. Get over it. ++++++++++++++++++++++ Got a good tip for YP advertisers? Send it my way, and I'll make you rich and famous. I posted some more jokes on the YPcommando site. What to Do if Monty Asks You back to top Forward to a Friend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Monty Hall had a great way of playing with people's heads. Should you stick with your original guess, or go for Door #3? +++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++++ There really is a scientific answer to this age-old question. Nigerian Restaurant back to top Forward to a Friend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I ate at a Nigerian restaurant the other day. Imagine my joy after opening this fortune cookie. Oh dear, the Internet needs a new roof. Ironman Competition back to top Forward to a Friend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ I competed in an Ironman competition last weekend. Unfortunately, I ran out of spray starch before I finished the second load. I brought an ironing board on vacation so my wife wouldn't be bored. This Week's Brainteaser back to top Forward to a Friend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Buford was being audited by the IRS. He figured that even if his son, brother in-law and his half-uncle were the same person, he should still be able to claim three dependents. The poor IRS auditor was so flustered that he gave Buford the opportunity to plead his case with a single statement. If the statement was true, Buford would be fined $10,000. If the statement was false, 'ol Buford would rot in prison for 10 years. What did Buford say that got the auditor to dismiss the charges altogether? Email your answer to puzzler@dicklarkin.com The winner will receive an amazing array of WorldPages.com goodies. To improve your random chances of winning, please include your name, company name and mailing address. I draw the winner the day before I send the following newsletter, so enter early and often. Is your company correctly listed in my link directory? Quote of the Week back to top Forward to a Friend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ "[Time is] the most valuable thing a man can spend." - Theophrastus (300 BC - 287 BC) ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ If you'd like to connect with other folks in the Yellow Pages industry, I invite you to join my LinkedIn network. It's a complimentary service that allows like minded individuals to privately communicate with each other. If you'd like an invitation, please email me at Dick@ypcommando.com All email addresses are kept private and are never shared, sold or otherwise abused. ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Know why I put quotes, jokes and puzzlers in this newsletter? Because everybody likes to smile! If you like the quotes and puzzlers I use, you will certainly get a kick out of the "Really Good Quotes" newsletter. Every day, they send several great quotes and puzzlers that will keep you on your toes. There are very few ezines that I recommend, but "Really Good Quotes" is pretty dang good. Sign up now at: http://groups.yahoo.com/group/reallygoodquotes/ Start every day with a smile (and some fiber). Contact Information back to top Forward to a Friend ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ email: news@ypcommando.com voice: 858-614-5425 web: http://www.YPcommando.com ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Yellow Pages Commando · 8344 Clairemont Mesa Blvd · San Diego · CA · 92111 Forward email This email was sent to newsletters@dicklarkin.com, by Dick Larkin. Update your profile |Instant removal with SafeUnsubscribe™ | Privacy Policy.

Consumers veto double Dex directory

from the Minneapolis Business Journal

Consumers veto double Dex directory

In response to community feedback, Dex Media Inc. will
publish single white pages A-Z and the same for yellow
pages for Minneapolis customers.

The Denver-based publisher for Qwest Communications
International had published volumes that put yellow
and white pages between A-J together and white and
yellow pages K-Z together.

"It's a competitive market, and consumers and
advertisers have choices," said Addie Maillard, Dex
senior market manager in Minnesota, in a statement.
"We have made these changes in response to consumer
feedback so we can continue to provide the most
complete, convenient print and online directories in
the Twin Cities."

Dex also will deliver more than 557,000 copies of a
new directory for the St. Paul Metro area that will
include a single-volume for both white and yellow
pages and will introduce the inaugural edition of the
Dex Highland Park-Summit Hill directory.