Information Research Weblog

There's an interesting two-part article on ZDNet about Yellowikis - a free business directory source, which, according to the article is causing some perturbations in the breasts of those involved in the Yellow Pages industry. [Scroll to the bottom of the first page for the link to the second part.]

The interesting thing from my point of view is that the founder, Paul Youlten, has pretty well the same attitude to open access publishing as myself. Apparently industry reps. have been contacting him with questions like, 'Who's funding you?', 'How are you going to make money?' and 'Why would you do this for free?'

Paul was taken aback by these comments, because Yellowikis (like a lot of Web 2.0 businesses) was developed very cheaply, uses open source technology and relies on word-of-mouth for marketing.

The 'very cheaply' bit meant $500.

Part 2 of the article suggests that the Yellow Pages industry may not need to worry yet, but they are obviously keeping an eye on it, just in case it takes off.