Why Four or More Phone Directories in Tulsa?

[AMP]

PC directories may work if you are tethered to a desk 8+ hours per day.  But what if you lock you keys in your car with the engine running?  Or need roadside assistance?  

Most people would go to the traditional phone book at the nearest store or QT and start calling the services listed.  Used to provide phone books at pay phones, but that is a thing of the past now.  

Even if you rely on the 411 on your cell phone, unless the business is advertised in the directory for the town you are requesting, they won't be listed in the 411 directories data base.  

Boils down to extraction of Millions of Dollars in advertising costs from the Oklahoma Economy every month.  Call the Yellow pages and get a quote on those full color ads. Then grab your caculator and add up the total number of pages in this years Yellow Page books.  Don't forget to multiply by 4 to get your grand total.

And yes it should be regulated by the Government, Judge Green missed that part in his Tele-Communication ruling.  

[RecycleMichael]

We have put large recycling dumpsters all over the metro area till new year's to collect phone books for recycling.

There is one at each recycling center and two downtown (one south of the PSO building and one west of the convention center).

For a list of recycling centers, go here...

http://www.metrecycle.com/depots.htm

Tulsa was the first city in the country to organize a phone book recycling collection drive. It was an effort to convince local leaders in 1989 that recycling was important.

[MichaelC]

http://www.theultimates.com/yellow/

Checks Infospace, Dogpile, Switchboard, Superpages, Smartpages, Worlpages....all from one location.

Or...

http://www.theultimates.com/white/

...for residential.

[AMP]

Granted there are Online sources for phone numbers and addresses, but how accurate are they, and how many of the listings have been closed and are obsolete on their lists.  

Just do a simple check for a basic type of service in any given state and start calling to see how many are still there.  Hard to determine how long they have been out of business, however I know of several that have been listed for six or more years, that have not been in business for that length of time.  

The list keepers just keep adding listings, they seldom remove any from their lists.

[AMP]

Oooops, I just tossed five of them into the trash dumpster. Hope they find there way to the recycle deal.

[Trams]

I wonder what the cost is to produce one of these bulky, huge, obsolete phone books?

[Steve]

I don't know why we have so many phone books delivered to residences in Tulsa, but I would bet that Tulsa is not unique in this.  I still have my trusty AT&T (SWB) land line, so I receive a new AT&T/SWB phone book most every year and this is the only one that I keep.  All other books I receive I deposit directly into recycle bins.  Seems like such a waste of natural resources.

The money they get from advertising must make the additional phone books profitable, or they would not exist.  I think it is a big waste, as I trash them all, except the AT&T/SWB book.

[okieinla]

I use the yellow pages of the phone book. Can't get used to using the internet for services/businesses like repairmen etc. Maybe I'm just 'programed' that way. I do like Sangria's suggestion of having it on disk.
Are disks recyclable?

[AMP]

Check the price for a full page ad in the phone directories.  Believe it is around $2,000 per month in the Tulsa directories, correct me if I am off a little, it may be even more.  

Count up the pages and multiply by $2,000+ per page as the smaller ads cost additional for their layout and smaller size, than buying a full page.  

2006 AT&T Book 1110 Pages Not counting the Coupon section which sells for an additional amount.

1110 x 2,500 = 2,775,000 per month

Times 4 Phone Books -  11,100,000 per month.

Or $133,200,000 per year.  

That is 133 Million Dollars just in the Tulsa Books.  Does not count Owasso, Jenks, Sperry, Bixby, Broken Arrow, Sand Springs. Those are probally another 20,000,000 or more in revenue that flows out of Oklahoma.

No wonder automobiles and other goods we buy are so outrageous.  Just look at all the money wasted on the multiple phone directory advertising costs.  

Thumb through the books and check out the businesses paying for those Full Page or Double Page Full color ads.  And how much are the cover ads?  Front, Back and Insides?  

But hey, a single business card size ad in the Oklahoman Newspaper in OKC runs us $940 per weekday.  It is $1,250 on Sunday black and white.

[AMP]

Based on results of people I know that own or are investors in service oriented businesses,  from a simple survey of their customers they have found the majority of their customers located them via the old fashioned Yellow Pages.  

They have their drivers and repair field personnel always ask how the customer found them, majority of the time it is Yellow Pages.  

Most their companies names start with the letter A or B also.

Not sure about other types of businesses.  We hardly ever receive phone calls, maybe four a week, and our numbers and business is listed on over 18,000 web pages, on hundreds of web sites online, and published in 14 trade magazines, plus 8 newspapers.

We may get a 1/2 dozen business emails a month on a busy month. Most those are ad proofs, or an inquiry regarding a service we provide.

[NellieBly]

Unfortunately, the phonebooks you throw away won't 'find their way' to a recycling center. They actually have to be dropped off there. Don't throw them away, they are made itno all sorts of products including house shingles.

[AMP]

Do the recycle people come by to pick them up?

[RecycleMichael]

If you are a subscriber to the curbside collection service offered by the City of Tulsa, the answer is yes.