Back when I was a wee lad growing up in primitive times (you know, the days before the internet), there was really only one way for us to discover local businesses (which at that point we just called businesses). Sure we could happen upon it as we drove around aimlessly (since there was no GPS) or hear about it by word of mouth, but the way to find businesses was to look it up in the yellow pages. It was worse than using an encyclopedia to find out an answer to your question, since at least most information in the encyclopedia were facts that did not change. But businesses open and close all the time and hours of operation change. So it was a multi-step process for the consumer, and they were not always getting the the latest information. And forget about adding the term local, since it was only organized alphabetically, and it would be really tough for a physical book to know where you were.

Read more →