The Yellow Block Road?

The evolution of information is fascinating. If we want to strip it right back to the beginning, we could start with drawings on cave walls from thousands of years ago and say ‘Yep, that’s where it all started — the need to share information’ — in fact, you could claim that to have been a pre-historic Instagram. If there was a Snapchat version of cave drawings, we’ll never know as obviously the drawings would have disappeared within 24 hours.

With less frivolity, we can bring the way businesses were found by consumers kick and screaming into the 19th Century and the forward-thinking Reuben H. Donnelley who decided there should be a white paper directory for individuals’ telephone number listings and a yellow paper version for businesses. Separating the two made perfect sense, as did categorizing the businesses and service and alphabetizing them, too. And so, in 1883, the first Yellow Pages was created.

Yellow Pages became invaluable to any business and, eventually, the versions were regionalized for even easier access to local services and goods and the idea was adopted across the globe.

In the UK. Thompson Local would compete with the Yellow Pages, but the latter remained the ‘bible’ for businesses.
192 — directory enquiries further enhanced the services available with callers able to ask about certain businesses (or individuals) and — provided they weren’t ‘ex-directory’ would have the number supplied or connected.

In the UK, 192 became something of an institution, run by British Telecom and, at its height, receiving 600million calls per year. 192 ceased to exist on 2002, bringing a 47-year run to an end and a part of British life to a close.

Then came the Internet. Suddenly, there was a new, faster way of getting the word out there with directories available via computers and as the computer and laptop industry exploded, so businesses learned they could operate their won websites, with early search engines such as Lycos, AOL and Yahoo able to locate them via their Universal Resource Locator (URL) — and everything changed.

The evolution then moved to being able to book and order goods, a table at a restaurant or pretty much whatever you wanted — and pay for it. Websites and ways of getting your business out there became more sophisticated as people learned about Search Engine Optimization and the like. And then came the mobile phone revolution that changed everything again.

Apps became king — and remain so — downloadable applications that take you right to source, whether it is social media, ordering food, news… whatever, so long as the app existed.
Websites like Yelp, TripAdvisor and Checkatrade grew powerful as people sought information on businesses via the experiences of others. And so it goes…

FlipNpik’s app takes us one step further — it focuses on specific areas (the ones the user lives in) and enables people to find local businesses, contact them, post reviews and share images — all in one place — and also monetizes the post so nothing the user does goes unrewarded.

Utilizing Blockchain and a unique Ecosystem, it’s the next step for businesses and consumers. Who knows where we’ll be in another 10 years?