2 June 2012

New Directory

| jbchild
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Just received my new phone directory today – how bad can it get? It’s half-size now, with print so small you need a magnifier to read. What a waste; what a load of ****! The cover contains an article on environmental impact, etc, etc and how much paper they saved. I would like to ask this –

how environmentally friendly is a product which is UNUSABLE ???

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Felix the Cat9:59 am 04 Jun 12

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.

wildturkeycanoe9:50 pm 02 Jun 12

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.’

pink little birdie6:30 pm 02 Jun 12

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

Gungahlin_Bob6:01 pm 02 Jun 12

This has been a topic of conversation with several people over the last week or so.

I am one for killing it off, and I would bet that it is on its last legs…..

The print is so small, it is painful to read, even with reading glasses, and to be honest, on the whole, the most likely ones to use it are the ones that are not computer literate, which are the more senior members of the community.

What was funny was that my daughters actually asked what they were for…..in their 10-12 years they had not even seen them, and were amazed when we showed them that our phone number was listed in there.

The sooner we stop chopping trees down for these books, the better. We are never going to be a paperless society, but these books are a definite environmental waste.

As some one said, it should be opt in, not opt out….when they find that they are only printing for small number, they might realise that they are waste….

Regards

Bob

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

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

The Yellow Pages is probably still a profitable venture (although I would have thought businesses could find more effective advertising – such as RA). I think that the White Pages is now combined in the same book as the Yellow Pages to keep costs down although I agree that both parts are probably a waste.

I remember reading somewhere recently that most people would choose not to list their personal phone numbers at all if it was free – which would make the White Pages even more obsolete.

I like the idea of printing and delivering phone books only to those people who ask for it (but the cost of printing and delivering these books is probably still less paper than a year’s supply of something like the Chronicle – which most people don’t want either).

how environmentally friendly is a product which is UNUSABLE ???

Wind turbines on calm days and solar panels at night fit into this category.

I thought they had stopped them. The last one I received was 2010. Then I find the little one sitting on my doorstep last night. It looked so cute that I’ll hug him and clean him and name him George.

+1 for making it opt in

Agree re new phone book. Now it is hard to find the tiny book by feel under the seat of the truck as I’m driving and squinting to find number whilst trying to keep eye on road as well is pretty dangerous. But I pull over to make call cos I’m law abiding.

I haven’t looked inside a phone book in years, thanks to the internet. I’d be willing to bet a large percentage of Canberrans only look in the book once a year – and that is within 5 minutes of delivery – to check their own listing. In my opinion it is a huge waste of resources and money to deliver paper books to each residence across Australia, as well as multiple copies to businesses.

Perhaps Canberrans can lead the way by proactively starting up the ‘Please don’t deliver the phone book here’ Register. It could initially be an opt out service similar to the ‘Do not call’ Register. If enough people let it be known they really don’t need it or want it, perhaps someone will listen and over time we could change to an opt in service (as suggested above).

Anyone want to take up the challenge of organising such a movement?

SnapperJack said :

I have no problem with that but elderly people who are computer illiterate will be effectively denied access to a telephone directory.

No, they’ll just need to get used to remembering one number – 1234.

The public complained about the combining of the White and Yellow pages in one book last year, specifically the inclusion of the White Pages at the back of the book hard to access unlike years ago when you turned the book around and upside down and the White Pages were at the front with a second cover page. Sensis responded by ignoring those complaints and creating a new source of angst with the small print this year.

I really believe this is the first step towards abolishing the book altogether and forcing us all onto the web sites. I have no problem with that but elderly people who are computer illiterate will be effectively denied access to a telephone directory.

Let’s hope next year when Tony becomes PM and politically correct environmentalism is kicked out the back door we can get our good old reliable, easy to read phone book back.

I completely agree jbchild; it’s about time they stopped wasting paper printing these things. They’re completely useless and production should have ceased five years ago.

At the very least they could be opt-in to save me having to pick it up and transfer it to the recycling bin!

The yellow and white pages have served no purpose for many years, other than for putting under my monitor at work to make it the right height and for holding things down. I do not know anyone who actually uses it, even the oldies use the Internet these days. I accept there may be a demand for them from some groups such as the elderly, but there’s no point producing tens of millions of copies when most people don’t want one. They should make it an opt in service where people can ring a number and they can be delivered.

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

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