Last Sunday I was quoted in the Sun Herald (Sydney) and the Sunday Age (Melbourne) by David Wilson.  He writes for the small business section and often provides tips on how small businesses can use the Internet.

I gave him an overview of my thoughts, a good wrap for Terapad and some tips on small business websites:

• Clarify what business you are in and what your customers need to know.
• Determine how your customers will use your website, if at all. If your site will be of limited value, abort.
• Based on your budget and skill, consider available product options such as forums, blogs, video and chat. Post questions in online forums such as LinkedIn.
• Determine what actions visitors will perform on your site. Write down the top five, which will help you choose the appropriate product features.
• Establish how much the site will need to change as your business evolves. Allot time to manage it.

and then threw in that ‘a cyberspace presence may be as important as a Yellow Pages listing once was‘.

Then I get this email on Monday…

Hello James,
 
Re: Article in Sunday Age.
 
I got this “info” email address from your website.  I hope you don’t mind some feedback on the article from the Sunday Age that you are quoted in - “Websites an easy choice for business”.
 
You wouldn’t be surprised to hear that Yellow Pages people were disappointed to read the comment attributed to you in the Sunday Age ……a cyberspace presence may be as important as a Yellow Pages listing once was.
 
I work for Yellow™ and we remain an important presence for Australian businesses.  Why?
 
- Yellow™ print directory is used more than 7 million times a month (Roy Morgan Jul 06- Jun 07)
 
- Yellow™ now has yellow.com.au – which gives thousands of small businesses that don’t have their own website an online prescence..  2.5 million people use yellow online monthly.
 
- Search engines (like google) send Sensis (white pages, yellow pages, whereis, sensis.com.au) about 43% of our traffic, so while google is a competitor they also refer business to our sites.
 
- Yellow™ sole purpose is to connect local sellers and buyers, search engines have a much broader purpose (general info/education) - what Australian businesses want is buyers not browsers.

In his article David states that 300,000 Australian businesses don’t have a website, many of them probably don’t need one and that is why the Yellow print directory is still available.

I bet you have two of them propping up your computer monitor..