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Two interesting articles this week about Yellow Pages (Telegraph and Independent) caught my eye (see links below).

Is the precipitous decline of Yell’s share price endemic, I wonder, of the whole printed business directory space?  Faced with stiff competition from online directories, combined with an economic slowdown in which businesses reconsider where they are spending their marketing bucks, could it be curtains for the old guard?

Where an older generation would always reach for the big yellow book, today’s consumers increasingly (and some would say in majority) reach for the Internet.  Its not just the delivery mechanism that’s changing, it’s the whole business model.

Take a look at Brownbook.net (www.brownbook.net), I’m the product strategist for that company, and there’s a good reason why I joined them.  It’s a totally devastating business model when compared with the traditional directory publishers.

Here are some of the differences:

- instant updates at any time, versus yearly updates

- cheaper AND more flexible advertising, versus high fees and inflexible options

- no sales force to fund, versus expensive on the road teams

- peer-produced, versus costly call centre and data entry agents

- increases SEO of companies websites, versus doesn’t really make any difference

There’s a lot more to it than that, but just how long can an old industry stick its head in the ground.  It reminds me of The Post Office 15 years ago when they missed the opportunity to be THE email provider and ISP for just about EVERY UK household… No, they said, our business is safe, and now they’re seriously challenged and stand NO CHANCE of competing in the electronic mail market.

See also:

The Independent - http://www.independent.co.uk/news/business/sharewatch/market-report-yell-feels-the-pain-as-broker-slashes-target-price-857752.html

The Telegraph - http://www.telegraph.co.uk/money/main.jhtml?view=DETAILS&grid=&xml=/money/2008/07/02/cxquest102.xml

I’ve been so damn busy with this new company i joined, Brownbook (www.brownbook.net), that I’ve not posted for a while. (which incidentally leads me to wonder if all regular bloggers are just not very busy people!!! ). I figured I should pull my finger out when my neighbour said he was just damned BORED of looking that the smart pen (below). So, where better to (re)start than updating my recent reading list. Here’s what I’ve been reading recently:

(not started yet) We-Think - Charles Leadbeater

I read an early draft of this online, that was great so when I saw this in the shop I just had to buy it.
(not started yet) The Idea Generator - Ken Hudson

A small pocket book that I will one day dip into.
(Brill) The Black Swan - The impact of the highly improbable - Nassim Nicholas Taleb

Brilliant, and the one that I am reading right now.
(Great) The Undercover Economist - Tim Harford

Great, but not quite up to the hype on the cover. Sure there are some interesting observations about the world, but its not like I started walking round seeing things totally differently (as the cover suggested I might).
(Eye-opening) Straw Dogs - thoughts on humans and other animals - John Gray

Recommended to me by the Chairman of Brownbook.net’s parent company, I saw it on the edge of his desk one day. Figured it’d be good to see what the boss was into. This book WILL change how you think about yourself and your race. Very, VERY good.
(Self-important CRAP) Playing With Fire - Gordon Ramsay

I love Gordon Ramsay, so I was VERY disappointed with this. The cover promises a rags to riches story, problem is he seems to get from rags to riches in about two pages, and the rest of the book is a load of self-important ‘look how great i am’ CRAP. I guess thats why we like him, eh?
(Brill, better than the title suggests) The 4-Hour Work Week - Timothy Ferris

This one is REALLY worth a read. Not for the fact that you will really work just 4 hours a week, but for the timesaving tips and practices that he preaches. Using one of his tips I have outsourced some of my weekl;y donkey work to a virtual personal assistant in INDIA. And why not, why should outsourcing just be for corporates and big jobs, my Indian guy is a pharmacology graduate, brilliant, polite, efficient, and $10 per hour. Beat that. You should try it.

See ON MY BOOKSHELF for more reading recommendations

I happened to be chatting to some old friends from the directory publishing world last week and they showed me an amazing technology that lets on the road sales people complete paper-based order forms and have the completed data and client signature sent back to their order processing system within seconds.  Its a comming together of a few technologies: a pen that has a small camera integrated below the ball-point nib, a special paper that has a unique pattern of almost invisible dots on it, and bluetooth technology to wire the info to a cellphone that sends the completed form.

So, when I spotted Chris Nuttall’s (FT.com’s SF based reporter) writing about something similar my ears pricked up.  Here is his piece which does a far better job of describing it than I can do:

I never knew that CurrentTV, that channel I sometimes stumble upon on my sky system in the UK (and often I actually stay for a while) was started, and has as its CEO, none other than Al Gore. Its on channel 193 on Sky UK and Ireland.

I just found out here on Techcrunch.

I love CurrentTV, it totally embraces the short-form web-like content that we’re all getting used to and gives people teh chance to get their productions from the Web to the TV. And it works. The quality, variery and pace of content is excellent, even the viewer created content (they use the term VC2 [V C squared) instead of UGC) links are fantastic.

(Looks like I’m not alone either, their website stats have been going through the roof, see their comscore graph on that Techcrunch article above.)

I love this www.twitxr.com, its a bit like twitter, but instead of twittering short text messages you post photos. Perfect for the mobile generation, publishing photos direct from your mobile. I wonder if they will extend this to let you do video?

(sorry, couldn’t resist that pun). Mashable reports that Tubes (TubesNow) the file sharing and synchronisation service is about to close down (on Jan 31st 08).

Mashable also has a chart showing the user drop-off.

zopa, the UK-based peer lending service is about to launch in the US.
Techcrunch reports here.

An excellent who’s who article from Liz Gannes at NewTeeVee (via)

Here’s a summary of who’s invested in what…
Time Warner Investments (TWX)
* BroadLogic: video processing chips (with Comcast Interactive Capital)
* Ripe Digital Entertainment: on-demand TV network for young men
* ScanScout: contextually relevant video ads
* Veoh Networks: online video platform
* Visible World: video advertising for TV and broadband (with Comcast Interactive Capital)

Comcast Interactive Capital (CMCSA)
* BlackArrow: video advertising platform for cable (recent coverage)
* BroadLogic: video processing chips (with Time Warner Investments)
* Revver: video-sharing with revenue sharing for all creators
* RGB Networks: video networking systems
* Visible World: video advertising for TV and broadband (with Time Warner Investments)
* Vitrue: white-label video sites and advertising services

Peacock Equity (GE)
* Firebrand: commercials as content portal (launching next week)
* NBC also has an investment in Worldwide Biggies, a digital studio — see our coverage.

Hearst Interactive Media (HTV)
* Brightcove: video-publishing tool provider (for some reason not listed on Hearst’s site)
* Sling Media: place-shifting hardware devices (sold to EchoStar)
* The NewsMarket: news video archive
* Worldwide Biggies: digital studio (also not listed on Hearst’s site)

Steamboat Ventures
* Move Networks: streaming television platform
* 56.com: Chinese video-sharing site
* CTS Media: Chinese video advertising
* Netmovie: Chinese VOD
* UUSee: Chinese Internet TV platform

Bertelsmann Digital Media Investments
* UITV: Chinese Internet TV site

For the full list, with links, and commentary, see the original post by Liz here.

Via Josh Bernoff (Forrester)

Prof. Lynda M. Applegate at the Harvard Business School writes:
Disruptive changes . . . can be viewed from 2 very different perspectives—as an opportunity or as a threat. In fact, entrepreneurs often view disruptive change as a source of opportunity. When they see a disrupted business environment—whether that disruption is from new technologies, new business models, or new regulations—they ask, “How can I leverage these changes to create value?”

But established companies often approach innovation and disruption much differently. Having worked hard to align strategy and organization to support the current business, they develop tunnel vision, encouraging employees, customers, suppliers, and partners to work together to deliver today’s business results. Even when disruptive opportunities are identified, tightly aligned organizations, business models, and industry relationships make it tough to respond quickly and effectively. As a result, executives in established firms often frame disruption as a threat. When they see changes happening, they work to defend their existing business model and ask, “How can I insulate against these disruptive threats and preserve my current business model?”

Prof. Applegate’s point is interesting in the context of the groundswell. The groundswell is full of threats since you are no longer in control of your brand — your customers are. Seeing this as an opportunity takes guts.

Via Josh Bernoff (Forrester)

Here is a comprehensive list of video search and video sharing sites.

For more details, including whether or not you can upload videos, video editing capability, single-file size limit, time limit, pricing structure, privacy settings, software downloads, target audience, monetize…. View the detailed video search engine and video sharing sites competitive matrix.

This list is also available in a more dynamic form with ratings and editor’s picks at contentinople.