Bile Pages

Bile Pages - Lileks doesn't like the new Yellow Pages. He doesn't know the half of it.

The new phones books arrived today. Usually not something I note unless I’m desperate for a column. (Years ago I reviewed one, treating it like a piece of literature. Hah! Boy, that was original.) But this time the phone book is truly different: it combines yellow and white pages, and splits them into two big two-toned books...So why do something so obviously stupid? Because they don’t own the Yellow Pages market anymore. There’s a new competing book in town, just as big, just as yellow – but it lacks the lineage that somehow confers legitimacy on the Dex Yelllow Pages. From Qwest you can trace a direct line back to a Bell, I think, and for some reason that’s comforting. (The Yellow Pages were the original Google.

The worst part, though? I'm actually going to have to pay attention to what's in the Yellow Pages. For years, Qwestdex.com was, if somewhat cantankerous, at least a useful and free way to get both white and yellow listings. For years, I didnt' even unwrap the directories that popped up on my porch periodically.

No more. Because Qwest bollixed up the directory website so badly, it's completely unusable.

Up until probably three months ago, qwestdex was a little touchy about input (you had to put in "St paul", not "Saint Paul"), but, and here's an important part, once you put the stuff in, actual results came out. If you knew a James Gronsolosky in Mendota, you'd enter:

Last name: Gronsolosky
First name: James
City: Mendota

And you'd get:

Gronsolosky, James (651) etc.

With the new site, "Dexonline", there's a new wrinkle. Say you want to find the Pizza Hut in Falcon Heights.

Enter "Pizza Hut", select "Falcon Heights" as the city, and uncheck the "Check surrounding area" box. Click the button.

You get dozens of pizzerias; Pizza Nabob in Elk River, Pizza Swede in Hugo, Pizza Spew in Uptown, and dozens of Pizza huts as far afield as Winona.

But not Falcon Heights.

Re-enter the data - you knew you didn't ask for "surrounding area".

Same list.

Repeat this process for everything you want to try to find, for two straight months.

With the old site, I found what I was looking for, every time. With the new site, it's about 30%. Speaking as someone who designs software to be usable, I'd say it's a big step back.

If they're trying to drive business to their toll 411 line, it's a lame way to do it.

Posted by Mitch at March 4, 2004 05:02 AM