communications industry structure, including mass media, advertising, and telephone companies
The once lucrative yellow pages print directory business is shrinking quickly in Northern Virginia. Some simple measurements and calculations indicate that the 2010 yellowbook yellow pages listing and advertising volume has shrunk more than 33% over the past year. The shrinkage this year seems to have been designed to be less obvious than the shrinkage … Continue reading print yellow pages rapidly shrinking
So you’re gonna replace Windows with an Apple? If you proposed doing that a century ago, you would be directed to a lunatic asylum. Prior to the late nineteenth century, the names of most goods used conventional representations: the producer’s name, a location, a conventional, generic description of the good (“Lea and Perrins’s Worcestershire Sauce”). … Continue reading invented brands and virtual goods
In the U.S. in the first half of 2009, 22.7% of households had only wireless telephones. Another 14.7% of households received all or almost all calls on a wireless phone. The share of wireless-only households has increased 2.5 percentage points in only six months.[1] More rapid shift to wireless telephony among younger persons isn’t surprising. … Continue reading rapid but uneven shift away from wireline telephony
In the mid-1970s, U.S. telephone companies began adopting metered service pricing for telephone directory assistance. Previously, unlimited free directory assistance calls were allowed under the flat rate for local telephone service. The new pricing structure had a fixed allowance of free calls (typically three to five) and a per-call charge for calls above that allowance. … Continue reading effects of metered service pricing
Telephone companies operated the first network-mediated, mass-market information search service. It’s called directory assistance. Make a telephone call, voice a query, and get back relevant information. By some narrow metrics, U.S. telephone companies have quite successfully developed this information search business. Prior to 1974, directory assistance in the U.S. was a freely offered ancillary service … Continue reading directory assistance and information search