How did "Yellow Pages" get its name? Why they are printed in yellow colour?

Question

"Yellow Pages" refers to Business Directories or Phone Books with Contact Database of Business establishments, generally printed over/with yellow background papers.

Answer 1

The very first time the term yellow pages was used was in 1883. A printer working on a regular telephone directory ran out of white paper and used yellow paper instead.

The name and concept "Yellow Pages" were invented in the USA, over a century ago.

While AT&T and GTE (the two major phone companies in the U.S.) dominated the U.S. yellow pages industry, the term "Yellow Pages" and the "walking fingers" logo were trademarks.

Answer 2

The very first time the term yellow pages was used was in 1883. A printer working on a regular telephone directory ran out of white paper and used yellow paper instead.

In 1886, Reuben H. Donnelly produced the first Yellow Pages directory featuring business names and phone numbers, categorized by the types of products and services provided.

Answer 3

In Russia and Soviet Union the advertisements and the businesses who gave these commercials were very frequent, so that the paper just worn out and got yellow colour (Esp. the notices on the rainy place) Then there came the need to organize these companies and businesses into an order, so you had bunch of yellow newspaper cuts, maybe that is why we have yellow pages today.

Answer 4

Advertisers are always interested in getting maximum viewership and yellow pages are easily get identified, that is why advertisements are generally printed over / with yellow background papers and that's why "Yellow Pages" refers to Business Directories .
:)

Answer 5

I realize it's extraordinary in every country, however to name to an English speakme man or woman yellow means cowardice or (every now and then) health problem. (i.E Are you yellow (a coward), or you're watching a bit of yellow (unwell)) a further illustration is that we use black as a colour of mourning, but in some Asian nations, the color of mourning is white. I wouldn't worry about it an excessive amount of, as you might associate yellow with a flower, equivalent to our native Daffodill, or the solar.

Answer 6

white

Answer 7

In many countries, the Yellow Pages refers to a telephone directory for businesses organized by the category of product or service. As the name suggests, they are usually printed on yellow paper, as opposed to white pages with non-commercial listings, printed on white paper. With the advent of Internet, the traditional term 'Yellow Pages' became applied to online directories of businesses.

The name and concept "Yellow Pages" were invented in the USA, over a century ago. The expression 'yellow pages' is used all around the world, in both English and non-English speaking countries.

While AT&T and GTE (the two major phone companies in the U.S.) dominated the U.S. yellow pages industry until at least the anti-trust breakup of the Bell System in 1984, the term "Yellow Pages" and the "walking fingers" logo were trademarks, but have been in the public domain since the 1950s when AT&T failed to renew the trademark registrations. This gave rise to a small but fast-growing "independent yellow pages" industry. Directories were published on behalf of the component Bell companies by the various publishing companies. The "independents" are unrelated to the incumbent phone company and are either pure advertising operations with no phone infrastructure or telephone companies who provide local telephone service elsewhere.

Yellow pages publishers or their agents sell the right to place advertisements within the same category, next to the basic listings.

For example, AT&T is the dominant local telephone service provider in California, but since Bell Atlantic and GTE merged to become Verizon, it now provides service in many pockets such as West Los Angeles. Los Angeles telephone users can select from telephone directories published by AT&T, Verizon, and several independent publishing companies like Yellowbook USA.

[edit] United Kingdom

The first Yellow Pages directory in the UK was produced by the Hull Corporation's telephone department (now Kingston Communications) in 1954. This was distributed with the classified phone directory rather than as a stand-alone publication.

With the encouragement of The Thomson Corporation, at the time an advertising sales agent for the nationalised General Post Office's telephone directory, a business telephone number directory named the Yellow Pages was first produced in 1966 by the GPO for the Brighton area, and was rolled out nationwide in 1973. The Thomson Corporation formed Thomson Yellow Pages in 1966 to publish and to distribute the directory to telephone subscribers for the GPO, and later for The Post Office.

Thomson Yellow Pages was sold by The Thomson Corporation in 1980, at the same time as Post Office Telecommunications became the (then) state-owned British Telecom (BT). The Yellow Pages directory continued to be distributed to all telephone subscribers by BT. At the same time, The Thomson Corporation formed Thomson Directories Ltd, and began to publish the Thomson Local directory, which would remain the Yellow Pages' main, and often sole, competitor in the UK for more than the next two decades, and would be the competitive driving force behind such changes to Yellow Pages as the adoption (in 1999) of colour printing and "white knock out" listings.

In 1984, the year that BT was privatized, the department producing the directory became a stand alone subsidiary of BT, named Yellow Pages. In the mid-1990s the Yellow Pages business was re-branded as Yell, although the directory itself continued to be known as the Yellow Pages.

Yell was bought by venture capitalists in 2001, and in 2003 was floated on the Stock Exchange. After the one year "no competition" clause expired BT too went into competition with the Yellow Pages, re-entering the market by adding similar content to their existing "The Phone Book", adding a classified section to the traditional alphabetical domestic and business listings.

Yellow Pages, Thomson Local and BT's The Phone Book display advertising and can be booked directly with advertising sales representatives.

Answer 8

Great question i too like to know answer to this question this may not be answer to your question. don't get angry.

but i will get u answer
............................. i have searched for more than ten minutes i could not get it

i am sorry

even site is yellow
forgot to say
even my baby sis used to tell me yellow yellow dirty fellow by seeing my yellow towel