Us West Shortens Yellow Pages Walk Phone Company Introduces Business Directory On Internet

The idea is that your fingers will still do the walking, but they won’t have to walk quite so far.

Suppose you’re planning a trip to Albuquerque, and foresee a need for some ice sculptures while you’re there.

But you’re going to be on vacation, after all, and you don’t want to run around Albuquerque all day in the heat trying to track down an ice sculptor.

You want to call ahead.

Well, up until a couple of days ago, you would have been flat out of luck. It’s not like you can just call up the Albuquerque Chamber of Commerce and ask for their list of ice sculptors.

Now, though, you can just access the US West Yellow Pages directory on the Internet.

Earlier this week, US West began offering Yellow Page information for the 40 major metropolitan areas in its 14-state service area - including Albuquerque and Spokane - via the Internet.

So just type http://yp.Uwest.com, choose Albuquerque in the cities list, cross reference your search for “ice sculptors” and - ta dah - you find Ice Dragon Custom Ice Sculptures. (Sorry, you’ll have to look it up on your own if you want the number.)< “We want to become the source of local information that you can really use to make your life simple,” Jon Lentz, public relations manager for US West Marketing Resources Inc., said during a demonstration of the on-line Yellow Pages Wednesday.

By the end of the summer, he says, all Yellow Page listings in US West’s service area will be accessible through the system. Soon after, listings nationwide will be at your fingertips, said Gwen Nail, US West’s new media marketing manager.

Using the paper Yellow Pages requires a veritable trek for your fingers compared to this.

You can conduct in-depth searches for businesses by name, phone number, the street you think you remember that they might be on, or broad categories like “artists” or “refrigeration.”

The site also includes a broad range of community information and news. It has a special reference for consumer information and shopping guides, and a helpful hints list on a variety of subjects like planning a wedding. (Just in case your trip to Albuquerque turns out to be more exciting than you had expected.)

US West has been test marketing the system in Boulder, Colo., since February. After receiving more than 300,000 hits during that time, the company decided to take the system regionwide.

It is currently test marketing a similar white pages listing in Boulder, and, Nail says, will decide based on the results whether to add an Internet white pages service region-wide.

US West believes the paper Yellow Pages will always be around. But, Nail says, the company also notes that 37 million users have access to the Internet worldwide.

The company will reap profits through advertising linked to the service, Nail says. Big companies will buy space for logos that will pop up across your screen as you go through the mechanics of your search. Others will buy a service whereby a click of the mouse on your company’s on-screen listing will automatically take you to the company’s web site.

Is this a great country, or what?

Now, what about leather harness retailers in Boise …?

, DataTimes