Facebook vs YellowPages: Can’t We All Just Get Along?
I ran across an online argument today that, to me, sounded ridiculous. I found this message among the tweeps I follow on Twitter: “Facebook just shot a HUGE hole in yellowpages.com’s business model. Why? Think about your phone books. http://ff.im/1l4mu” The link goes to a FriendFeed series of comments where people are basically arguing over the wrong point… how useless paper phone books are.
Duh.
Apparently, Facebook is adding White Pages and Yellow Pages functions. Ok, so what? In a world soon to be run by cell phones, Facebook isn’t exactly my first choice for finding the local specialty shop on my way to the bridal shower I forgot about. Their “new” look actually seems to have made some parts of their interface less phone-friendly.
These people are missing the point. When you execute a local search on the internet, you don’t go inside Facebook to do it. You may not even go inside Superpages.com or YellowPages.com to do it. You’ll probably go to Google or Yahoo or use the search portal interface built by your phone service company. After executing your search, if the businesses in question have done their jobs right, you’ll see Google Business listings at the top with a map before you notice anything else.
Afterward you might notice that there are half a dozen other listings for the product you’re looking for but the links will be to Superpages.com, Yellowpages.com, CitySearch.com, Yahoo! Local, and even Facebook.
From my point of view, the function of Yellowpages.com is to give me another place to post accurate information about my business. Facebook is a place to build relationships. Those two functions don’t interfere with each other.
I dunno what all the fuss is about!
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