The term Yellow Pages refers to a telephone directory for businesses, categorized according to the product or service provided. As the name suggests, such directories are usually printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages for non-commercial listings. With the advent of the Internet, the traditional term "Yellow Pages" is now also applied to online directories of businesses.
The name and concept of "Yellow Pages" were invented in the USA, over a century ago. The expression "Yellow Pages" is used globally, in both English and non-English speaking countries. In the U.S., the expression "Yellow Pages" refers to the category, while in some other countries it is a registered name and therefore a proper noun.
In general
Yellow pages directories are usually published annually, and distributed for free to all residences and businesses within a given coverage area. The majority of listings are in plain small black text. Yellow pages publishers make their profits by selling special value-added features to businesses such as a larger font size for their listing, or an advertisement box next to the listings in a category.
Since the mid-1990s, there has been a trend among yellow pages publishers to add four-color printing for some advertisements. Many publishers also offer the option to have advertisements appear with a white background to make them stand out. Interestingly, most yellow pages are not printed on yellow paper; rather the yellow is printed onto the paper. When an advertisement is printed with a white background, its part of the page does not receive yellow ink—so the white is actually the natural color of the paper. This is known as "white knock-out".
Online yellow pages
The information contained in the yellow pages is essentially a commodity, so publishers often engage in product differentiation tactics like bragging that their listings are more comprehensive or up-to-date. In 1999, a new tactic was pioneered by France Télécom's Pages Jaunes, which dispatched photographers to certain French cities so it could add a photograph of businesses along with their phone number and street address.
With the boom of social networking sites that became well-known to the public by MySpace, FaceBook, CyWorld, and many others, many on-line yellow pages have begun to include a Web 2.0 element to their sites. The basic method used by most directories is by allowing the public, or users of their sites, to post reviews and recommendations. Some websites have actually begun with only such content generated by users. Online yellow pages have combined both the Web 2.0 element and the traditional business directory together, either in a limited scope or in a fully-expanded manner, where both users and businesses can upload content.
