When I hear "It's all free," I'm a tad skeptical. When I hear about millions of phone numbers at my Web-battered fingertips, I go from skeptical to the sort of scoff that Dennis Miller would admire. In the case of the BigBook Web site, though, its San Francisco-based developers deliver. Eleven million businesses are online that's every commercial enterprise listed in the Yellow Pages. And they're all free to consumers, so you don't need to purchase Yellow Pages from another city (Chicago's goes for US$75). What's more, each business features a Web page that includes its name, address, phone number, and a street map with its exact location. If you don't know where it is, zoom in for a closer look at the street.
How does BigBook offer all this largesse? In the near future, it plans to put up targeted ad spaces geared toward geographic location and type of business. So, for instance, you won't see an ad for a dry cleaner in Denver when you look for a Chinese restaurant in Topeka. Who knows? These ads might actually prove helpful. Other Web sites would do well to take a page from BigBook.
I gave BigBook the acid test would my boyfriend Steve's home-based business be posted? Steve has a one-line listing in our local Yellow Pages. On BigBook, he has a full listing with an address and a map that shows the exact location of the lovely corporate offices. I zoomed in so close to Steve's home-business that I could almost see the backyard.
There's more to come. BigBook plans to let any business add information about store hours and special offers. If it's Saturday at 2 a.m. and you want to know which pizza places within five miles of your home are still open and deliver, you'll find them. You can look up the hotel where you'll be staying next week and the convention center you'll have your meetings in you can then decide if you should plan for a taxi ride across town or a walk across the street.
BigBook hopes to be the vox populi of business. Soon you'll be able to vote about each business's services. Who needs so-called expert opinion anymore? If 25 people in your neighborhood like one pizza, and only five like another, which one will you take for a test spin on your dinner table?
BigBook Inc.: +1 (415) 284 9886, fax +1 (415) 284 9888, email: info@bigbook.com, on the Web at www.bigbook.com.
STREET CRED
Striking a NerveThe End of Science
Let Your Fingers Do the Web Walking
