Dear Pericles,

<<Not necessarily. You would constantly be swapping backwards and forwards between the address in the yellow pages and a street directory(!).>>

That's why I found the online version attractive - it places little flags with numbers on a map, so I focus the map on my area and look at the closest flags.

Only now, Arjay is telling me that not every business is there, so I may have to go back to the printed version and sort the category by post-codes.

<<No URL, no email address, no description of what my business does.>>

Once I know your business-name and address, a quick search can find the URL (if you have one). An email is completely irrelevant - I'm not going to write that much, introducing myself, opening myself up to spams and then having to wait for replies.
I also have no reason to believe descriptions - I often found that advertisers don't provide what they seem to promise. The best way is to phone, and see whether I get to talk with a real person who is available and can understand exactly what I need. If I get passed to a switchboard instead and treated like a number, then I hang-up and look at the next entry.

<<To you. But not, as Arjay points out, to the restaurant - they pay, in order to be visible to you.>>

In the end, it is I who pays the bill - advertising costs are simply included in the menu. That's just one reason why advertisements are a turn-off: I rather pay for the food (in the case of a restaurant) and support a local family-business. If I find that rather than paying for a meal, some of my bill goes to shmoogle instead, feeding some American computer-geeks, I may not enjoy the meal that much!

You can search locally via your mobile for anything and all the information you need will appear then you push the phone number on the screen to call them.

You can even open an app with pre-set search queries, hold the phone up, and it'll tell you the distance to that business, offer a map, and if you want to call them.

Yellow pages. lol

Dear StG,

<<You can search locally via your mobile for anything>>

That would be an interesting experiment as mine is made of thin air!

Does this mean you don't have a mobile phone, Yuyutsu?

>>That would be an interesting experiment as mine is made of thin air!<<

It would certainly go a long way towards explaining your attitude to Yellow Pages.

Mind you, it does also paint a picture of someone who, faced with Caxton's fifteenth century breakthrough, would have grumbled that the entire concept of reading books was vastly overrated.

Yuyutsu,

Right, well, luck with that when they're gone. You've obviously got a computer. Whereis.com has your yellow pages - OMG YES, they're online too - and everything else you might need.

Welcome to the 21st Century.

Thank you StG, I tried "Whereis.com" and it worked beautifully.

I noticed that all the entries there had a "yellow-pages" symbol besides them. Does it mean that I wouldn't see those businesses that are not in the yellow-pages?

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The answer is Yes, Pericles: I find it immoral to send electromagnetic radiation through other people, animals and birds, though I have no wish to impose my own moral standards on others.