The Yellow Pages book is No Longer Useful

An irrelevant book landed on my doorstep. Who still uses the Yellow Pages to find anything nowadays? It’s ridiculous the amounts of money small businesses fork out to get into a book no one reads. YellowPages.com makes sense, but why waste so much money on books that people use as firewood or as a monitor/laptop stand?

• When I’m looking for food/restaurants in Ballard, I go to Yelp
• When I’m looking for a lawyer regarding car accidents, I go to Avvo
• When I’m looking for Seattle cooking classes, I go to TeachStreet

Tell me if I’m wrong, but I use the internet all the time when searching for services or businesses. They’re more up to date, and have a wealth of information. In the era of information, I wouldn’t see why anyone would use the Yellow Pages (unless you don’t have access to internet).

Question: Do you still use the Yellow Pages for your searching needs?

Seattle International Film Festival - The Classic Upsell

My brother, cousin, and I are starting a new tradition this year where we all choose a movie we’d like to see and purchase the tickets for everyone in order enjoy this year’s Seattle International Film Festival (SIFF). The movie I chose was (500) Days of Summer with Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Zooey Deschanel. My brother chose Miao Miao from Hong Kong. I know what you’re thinking, “Joseph, you’re movie isn’t international!”. And yes, you would be correct — but I’m not returning my tickets.

My film not being international is besides the fact, and isn’t the reason why I’m writing this post. I just wanted to share with you the classic upsell all sites should have when it comes to selling products or a service on your site, and what SIFF has done well.

The idea is quite simple:

1. User completes a transaction on your site (i.e., purchase, action, etc.)
2. User provides you a bit of information on what they are interested in
3. Company should take that bit of information and provide you with a suggestion on what to do next

Here are a few examples:

• User reveals that they have read a book. User should get a recommendation on what book to read next. (Shelfari)
• User writes a review for a restaurant. User should get a list of restaurants they may have eaten at to review next. (Yelp)
• User purchases a series of classes/workshops. User should get a recommendation to invite their friends to take the class too. (TeachStreet)

This is exactly what SIFF did when I purchased both the (500) Days of Summer and Miao Miao. I purchased the tickets, they took that information of what I’m somewhat interested in and suggested a movie I’d be interested in within the same genre. It’s pretty simple, and I might just watch The Girl of Monaco because of that recommendation.

Question: What other website out there does this well (Amazon.com is a given)?