A Case for Dead Tree Phonebooks

| | Comments (2)

While the Internet has, by and large, replaced the Yellow Pages, it has not replaced the White Pages.

I find it very handy to be able to find somebody’s phone number based on knowing about where they live (i.e., the town), and a vague idea of how their name is spelled. And because wildcards can only go so far, having a compact, readily-accessed list to scan works significantly better than trying to figure out what to tell the search to get an equivalent list.

Until somebody has a phonebook app or website that can deal with phonetic spellings, the dead-tree phonebook wins hands down, every time.

2 Comments

Bergamot said:

Who the heck are you calling that still has a land line?

Bill Eccles said:

It's still a staple of existence in rural areas, and especially in rural families with kids. But I know... it's getting rarer and rarer to have copper to the house anymore.