Bill Gates: Print Yellow Pages Will be Dead in Five Years
Posted by Sebastien on the 2007/05/10 at 09:10
in Bill Gates, Directories, Instant messenging, Kelsey Group, Microsoft, Mobile, Nintendo, Tellme, Voice Search -
Went to bed yesterday reading this article from the Seattle Times. The paper reports on a speech Bill Gates gave to some of Microsoft’s top advertising customers. Other than the usual story of newspapers demise, there was an interesting tidbit about print directories.
The traditional Yellow Pages are doomed as voice-activated Internet searches combined with on-screen interfaces on smart mobile devices get better and proliferate, Gates said. The company’s recent acquisition of voice-technology provider TellMe is accelerating the trend. “When you say something like ‘plumber’ the presentation you get will be far better than what you get in the Yellow Pages,” Gates said. “After all, we know your location and so we can cluster [results] around that. &