Phone Books – From Doorstep to Recycle Bin
February 25, 2010
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Going Green ?
I read this morning in the Arizona Daily Star that College Yearbooks have fallen out of favor on most campuses. Why? Facebook. No one needs a year book to look back on there classmates any more. They “Friend” them on Facebook.
But that is just the lead in to my real grip topic of the day.
The Yellow pages Dinosaur
Not only are the flowers beginning to come up and the landscape is going green around Tucson, but we also see the fresh arrival of the Phone books appear on our doorsteps. Commonly referred to as the “Yellow Pages”. I refer to them as “A total waste of paper”.
These things go directly from my doorstep to the recycle bin. I don’t need or want them.
But what about the maps and coupons?
I don’t want or need them. In the past I’ve done the coupon thing from the Yellow Pages. Turned out in almost every case I didn’t save a thing.
I had to find the coupon, clip the coupon, remember to take the coupon, remember to show the coupon before ordering. No thank you. Please don’t get me wrong, we clip coupons. We use coupons, but the ones in the yellow pages . . .
The Green Directory
Googled and delivered
I’m not a tree hugger; I used to be growing up, I climbed and hugged them all the time. But not anymore, however, I don’t think printing multiple directories all of which end up in the recycle bin is a good use of natural resources. What do I use? My Berry. Quick, simple and really easy to use.
See the image to the right. I didn’t have to go to the yellow pages, (which I don’t carry in my car). I don’t have to go to “Restaurants” then find “Oregano’s” Instead, I pull out the berry and search on “Oregano’s Pizza Tucson” You see what I got on my screen.
The address, the map, the phone number. If I want to call them I scroll over the phone number and it is dialed. No need to find scrap paper, find a pen, find the reading glasses, write it down and then find the phone and dial, by which time I’ve forgotten why I wanted to call them in the first place.
The Berry (and Google) help me quickly find what I want and where I want to go. It is small, compact, and quick. It looks it up for me. No wetting my thumb, no two pages stuck together.
With all the emphasis on “Going Green” isn’t it time there was a change in the distribution of “The Yellow Pages”.
I know not everyone has a cell phone (not yet) but I’ll bet less than 10% of the people getting multiple phone books every use them for a phone book.
Door stop, yep; Booster Seat, yep; Mini step stool, yep, but not as a phone book. So why not let people pick them up or have them delivered after they call for one instead of dropping, dropping, dropping these things on doorsteps all over the country.
Post Tags: Blackberry , google , Yellow Pages
Tucson Absorption Rates January 2010 9.12
February 22, 2010
January took it’s usual increase in the absorption rate with the annual influx of new listings for the month. Last January we saw an increase from 9.84 in December of 08 to 13 + months for January. This year it was 6.79 to 9.12; not quite a 3 month increase. There were over 1,100 pending contracts in January so hopefully the February absorption rate will drop a bit. Too early to tell at this point.
Every area of Tucson saw an increase in inventory in January. The graph shows the numbers and tells the story.
Post Tags: Tucson Absorption Rates January 2010 , Tucson Real Estate Market
