New Directory

dtc said :

Has anyone tried to use the online yellow pages recently?

Try this search ‘custom wetsuits Canberra 2601’.

Every result in in Queensland

Its a hopeless search engine. The paper version is much faster

Yes agree totally. If I’m looking specifically for a business in Canberra I don’t want to know about businesses in Qld or any other state. Quicker/easier/more accurate to just do a Google search rather than use Yellow Pages website.

Has anyone tried to use the online yellow pages recently?

Try this search ‘custom wetsuits Canberra 2601’.

Every result in in Queensland

Its a hopeless search engine. The paper version is much faster

c_c said :

Well you see there’s this great invention called the internet where one can find any phone number, and phone number you can ring to get any phone number should internet be unavailable.
Unfortunately to appease the grey vote, phone books remain.

Luckily the concerns about font size have been heard and in 2013/14, they’ll be making the fonts bigger – and therefore using more paper and ink.

http://about.sensis.com.au/News/Media-Releases/?ItemID=1158&count=1

Not sure how making the text smaller helps out the old folks

The 2 captcha images in my post above did not display.

Here they are:

And

One advantage of the paper version is that you can look up addresses and businesses without it being tracked on the internet, and hence being besieged with garbage ads.

I regularly search the interweb for weird stuff – “weddings in Fiji”, “engine oil”, “cakes” and “balljoints for XY Falcons” – just to screw up Google.

You can opt-out of receiving the dead-tree version of the phone directory. However, they don’t make it easy. Firstly, finding the opt-out page is difficult – the link is hidden deep in the sensis website. Here it is:

https://www.directoryselect.com.au/ds/

Once I got there, my troubles had only begun. I typed in my address, but their website insisted that I lived in NSW, despite living in deepest, darkest ACT. There was no way to change my address to ACT. So I left it as NSW.

Then, I had to confirm a Captcha – the human-confirming text recognition system. This is is the text I was served up first:

So I reloaded the page, had to enter my address all over again, (again insisting I lived in NSW), and got a second Capthcha:

Finally, after my third load of the page, I got a western font and text and got through.

Then I had to send them an email telling them that my actual address was in ACT not NSW as the site kept insisting.

Got a nice reply apologising for the website troubles, but telling me that since I opted out in January, I would still get the book this year in April as the delivery schedule had already been confirmed.

And lo and behold, after all my efforts, the dead-tree version did in fact arrive on schedule.

I have been assured that from now on, I will not receive the phone book for 5 years. Yay!

Deckard said :

You can ask not to have one delivered if that’s your choice…

https://www.directoryselect.com.au/ds/

Thanks for the link. Shame you have to give them your personal details to not receive – I’d rather give them my details if I wanted to opt in. Makes more sense.

If you were to pile up the glossy advertising brochures from retail outlets, the ones from the government informing us of what they are/aren’t doing, the misdirected mail, the bills from all of our essential and non-essential suppliers and anything else not listed above…..there’s a couple of phone books already. None of that is useful but without all this you’d eventually back over your mailbox and not bother fixing it. I mean, all we get lately is bills. Nobody sends letters anymore, it’s emails or texts. I’m happy to get something that has things that Gen Y have – 1. Handy Maps [Google maps], 2. A Fast Find Index [Google Search], Business Directory [Google Search] and a quarter of pages with either blanked out lines where space wasn’t taken up, or “YELLOW” advertising. If they’d got rid of the adverts and blank spaces, made the font 3 times bigger, the book would be legible and no thicker than an old 5 & 1/2 inch floppy disk!!! Someone getting desperate for a reason to keep their job?

Deckard said :

You can ask not to have one delivered if that’s your choice…

https://www.directoryselect.com.au/ds/

Thanks for the link Deckard. I have just filled out the webform. I think I’ll pop this link on my facebook page and help spread the word!

I notice you can only cancel it for three years….. (and of course it’s too late for this year).

‘Your book delivery cancellation will remain in place for three years for the books you have selected.

As a quality check and to alert your household that a cancellation is in place, you’ll receive a postcard during each book delivery period to your area.

When the end of your three year cancellation is approaching, we’ll contact you to remind you to renew your cancellation if you wish.

Please note that your cancellation is connected to the address you give us, so if you move house or change addresses you’ll need to complete this process again for your new address.’

I guess I’m one of the few people who use it…
I find it’s easier and faster to find a local business that I want particularly if I have only an idea of the service I want but no names of companies.
Scouts and community groups make money by delivering the book.
my house has only has one computer so If I want to look a phone number while someone is on the computer it’s way easier to use the phone book.
If you need a emergency number that isn’t triple 0 they are in the front of the book which means they can be found even if the power is out or I don’t need to wait 5 minutes for the computer to load (old computer) to get the number