Over the past couple years I have liked my yellow pages representative. Honestly, that slim bond was the only thing that even kept me in the book. I will not name names, but we are talking the "main" Bellingham phone book here, not one of the copycat books of which there are many. My wife, who took over paying bills a few months back, has told me that I ought to dump the yellow pages and the $50.00 per month that they charge. I spent 30 years in media and marketing so I know how to track my business. I can say that I have not been able to track a client back to the yellow pages since 2007. Just the same, I was going to keep the listing another year, except the representative said that the rate was going up. Now, it was not going up much, but even two bucks more a month is a lot when a person is convinced that there is no value in the product. That small bump tossed me over the edge and I told the rep that, far as I could tell, they had blinders on and nobody cares about the book anymore. They have been replaced mainly by three words : Google, Yahoo and Bing. The rep, nicely, explained that I was wrong and suggested that all these people I am crediting to the Internet have, in fact, found me first in the yellow pages and then they decided to look me up to find out more. Now I better understand the power of Google -- Pleeeeeeease! I think that, like the photo copy shops, the numerous one-hour photo developing shops and the VHS video store on every corner, the yellow pages are sinking into the abyss. And one thing I am sure of, having worked in AM radio as it started to fall in popularity to FM, is that ignoring a problem and pretending that you are better than ever is a sure way to fail big. I think that is where the yellow pages are headed. We call it skydiving without a parachute. Long story short, I am now gone from the yellow pages. Thanks for stopping by, Steven L. Smith