Last February, I wrote about the dying business model that is printed phone directories. Like Lee before me, I argued for a shift from ‘blanket the country with 30 million phone books a year’ to ‘let people opt in to receive them’.
Today I read on Rebecca’s site that the Yellow Pages Group has finally implemented an opt-out option. They’ve framed it, rather absurdly, as a ‘Custom Delivery Program’:
You can now choose to receive more copies or to be removed from the distribution list. At all times, you can also consult our online directories YellowPages.ca and Canada411.ca. In addition, you can select gadgets and mobile applications to access our Yellow Pages™ directory content on the go.
The deadline to opt out of the next delivery is November 19, so if you don’t want the Big Useless Stack of Yellow Paper, get thee to this web page and decline your copy.
I’m not going to fall all over myself giving credit to Yellow Pages Group for this because:
It’s 2009, and they could have easily implemented this five years ago. Heck, they could have done it 25 years ago by including a comment card in the physical directory.
You’re not declining delivery permanently. From their frequently asked questions (PDF): “Your registration is valid for two directory deliveries. After that time, you must register again at www.ypg.com/delivery.”
It remains an opt-out system, meaning that waste will be reduced, but it certainly won’t be eliminated.
The Devil and the Details
I wanted to explore a few of the nuances of how they’ve implemented this program. The home page for this section is interesting in and of itself. There are two text links in the introductory text which are far more visible than the ‘Continue’ button, which is buried unobtrusively in the bottom righthand corner. It’s surprising, but we often see links in text receive higher clickthrough rates than graphical buttons:
Why are the frequently asked questions presented as a PDF? Is there a more effective way to discourage people from reading them? Additionally, the page doesn’t render correctly on my version of Safari (BroswerShots confirms that it’s not just my machine–note the overlapping text and oddly placed field):
That’s a bit ironic, if user stereotypes hold true. It seems to me that your average Mac user is far likelier to want to opt out than your average Windows user.
Lower down on the page, after you’ve entered your details, they offer some alternative apps for your mobile device. I don’t care to marketed to when I’m engaged in a customer service experience, but that’s their prerogative. What I do object to is the explanation-free captcha at the bottom of the page:
You need to complete this captcha to move to the next step in the opt-out process. To veteran web users, the captcha’s function is obvious and it’s easy to complete. However, I’d guess that many (a majority of?) Canadians have never completed a captcha, and has no idea what to do with one. Yellow Pages Group offers no context or instructions regarding what it’s for or how it works. It thus presents a significant barrier to the opt-out process.
Why do they need a captcha in the first place? Otherforms on their site don’t include captchas. Do they really think they’re going to get a ton of spammers opting into or out of receiving directories? And isn’t it rendered unnecessary by the subsequent email confirmation step?
Finally, there’s the confirmation step:
The heading is oddly worded, considering that I have declined, not ordered a delivery. And they’ve included another commercial offer, despite the fact that I was viewing the page with Safari.
Am I picking on the Yellow Pages? Yes, and I probably shouldn’t, because I want to encourage sustainable behaviour. I’m obviously underwhelmed by this effort, though. In web design and usability, the devil is in the details and the mistakes I’ve outlined are pretty obvious ones.
This opt-out process seems designed to create barriers between the a site visitor and their desired outcome. Here’s the fundamental question: have they made it as easy as possible to opt-out? I’m afraid the answer is obvious.
Welcome to Walden Pond, Fifth Avenue style. Isabella’s parents, Colin Beavan, 43, a writer of historical nonfiction, and Michelle Conlin, 39, a senior writer at Business Week, are four months into a yearlong lifestyle experiment they call No Impact. Its rules are evolving, as Mr. Beavan will tell you, but to date include eating only food (organically) grown within a 250-mile radius of Manhattan; (mostly) no shopping for anything except said food; producing no trash (except compost, see above); using no paper; and, most intriguingly, using no carbon-fueled transportation.
I’m rather late getting to this, but I wanted to express my happiness about a successful conclusion to the Save the Great Bear project. Regular readers will recall that we were helping with the online outreach for this effort to ensure that the BC government kept its promises regarding protecting the Great Bear rainforest on BC’s central coast. From the Vancouver Sun:
Agriculture and Lands Minister Ron Cantelon said the Great Bear plan is an example to the world on managing human activity while protecting biodiversity. “The war is over. Now we can move on in a positive way,” he said in an interview.
The 6.4-million-hectare area is roughly the size of Ireland. The plan sets aside 2.1 million hectares of land as parks and conservancies. Over the rest of the land, resource development, specifically logging, is to be based on ecosystem-based management.
Environmentalists say the new logging rules will require streams, grizzly bear habitat and half the old-growth timber to be protected.
I confess to being reasonably naive about the politics and backroom dealings that presumably get these deals done. Most parties seem happy with the outcome, which is, inevitably, a compromise from everybody’s initial position.
We can only accept a sliver of the credit for this result, but it’s one of my proudest moments for Capulet.
This qualifies as a client plug, I suppose, but it’s a cause that’s really close to my heart.
We’re doing some work with Greenpeace Canada, Sierra Club of BC and ForestEthics on the continuing campaign to save BC’s Great Bear rainforest.
The Great Bear Rainforest is a huge swath of the land–the size of Austria–on BC’s central coast. It’s home to three kinds of bears, six million migratory birds, 3000 genetically distinct salmon stocks and many species of plants unique to the region. Most importantly, it’s the largest tract of intact coastal temperate rainforest left on Earth.
As you may recall, there was a landmark agreement in 2006 among various stakeholders–the provincial government, logging companies, First Nations and environmentalists. They agreed to a new approach to resource planning developed by an independent team of scientists, and committed to its implementation by March 31, 2009. But we’re not (ahem) out of the woods yet. From the petition:
A couple of years ago, Premier Campbell made a very specific commitment to preserve this precious rainforest. The final countdown is on for the BC government to make their promise a reality by the March 31, 2009 deadline. Premier Campbell needs to hear from you.
We are down to the wire. Unless all elements of the promise are kept, the ecological health of the rainforest will be in jeopardy once again. We’ve come so far towards the rare success of having a vast unspoiled forest safeguarded, let’s not undermine all this good work by not reaching the finish line.
Give Me an Early Christmas Present: Sign This Petition
If you can spare 37 seconds, I’d really appreciate it if you would sign the petition urging the government of BC to keep their promises regarding this precious region. You don’t have to be from BC, either–support from other parts of the globe really helps.
If you’re keen to help beyond signing the petition, consider any of the following:
Blog, tweet, bookmark or otherwise spread the word on the campaign.
Watch, favourite and share this two-minute YouTube video about the project:
Thanks to Emily, Raul, Monique, Rebecca and everybody else who has written about the campaign thus far. We’re making good progress, but we’ve got a ways to go.
For the past couple of years, I’ve advocated to anybody who would listen that I thought there was great online opportunity in forming a green ad network. Something like The Deck or Federation Media, but for a group of vetted, popular environmental and sustainability sites. There has, of course, been an explosion of such sites on the web in the past few years. A few such networks exist, but they all feela littlehokey.
They haven’t got a list of publishers up yet. This seems fairly crucial, so I’m going to email them and enquire about that. Regardless, I think that such a network might be able to weather the economic downturn better than most.
UPDATE: I got a prompt response from goodsense founder and CEO Adam Wood: “We’re just finalizing our list of publishers and expect to have one we can share publicly in the next couple of weeks.”
With the Power House kit you can build a model house complete with solar panels, windmill, greenhouse, and desalination system. You can build and operate an electric train, windmill, solar cooker, solar hot water tank, hygrometer, electric motor, power hoist, sail car, and more! Plant watercress, prepare sauerkraut, and make chewing gum. Learn how plants convert sunlight into energy for your body and your engines.
Plant watercress! Prepare sauerkraut! Here’s a, uh, artist’s rendering. If it hasn’t been yet, this badboy ought to be featured on Geekdad.
I was doing a bunch of online research yesterday, and encountered a bunch of heretofore-unknown blogs. These five intrigued me for one reason or another:
Full Bodied - Nice (wine) rack! Keep abreast of vintner trends! The A, B, Cs and double-Ds of wine culture! “Two hot fat chicks on wine and other good things in life.” Features reviews and photos of wine nestled in cleavage. I don’t drink, and I kind of think the wine industry is a big scam, but I’m sure plenty of others will dig the wine plus boobs strategy. Thanks to The Vancouverite for the find.
Green as a Thistle - Vanessa is a journalist at the National Post, and is spending “an entire calendar year, doing one thing that betters the environment.”
Kitchen Witch - This looks like a popular and witty blog. I like any blogger who frets over the gender of her chickens: “Pepper is still gender-indeterminate. Curses. Looks slightly different from Liquorice, but then it’s not as if they’re identical twin chickens, now is it? I continue to think henly thoughts, pushing all roosterish inclinations from my mind.” Mostly, I liked the total absence of a header graphic. The first blog post starts at the very top of the page–quite unusual.
For the past seven years, I’ve probably used a clothes dryer once a month. I wish this were out of some kind of smug ecological sensitivity, but it’s more practical than anything. Here’s why?
We lived in Ireland, and we had a combination washer/dryer device in our flat. This is a ridiculous, useless invention. The washer part works okay, but the dryer function doesn’t merit that term. You’d have more success if you microwaved your moist clothes.
Since a massive growth spurt in my teens, I’m paranoid about my clothes being too short (in particular, my trousers). It’s irrational, I know, and I’m excellent at doing laundry, so I almost never shrink my clothes. Still, hanging clothes to dry is the safest way to go.
We only have a washing machine in Malta. We dry clothes using the nearest star to the Earth.
In short, we’ve just gotten into the habit of hanging clothes on a rack to dry. That fact that the dryer is a big, idle electricity sucker is just a bonus.
Now, I’d imagine that a family with young children produces a crapload of laundry, so it would be more difficult to go dryer-free. And it’d be pretty unpleasant to go to the laundry mat, wash your clothes, and then cart them home, dripping wet, to hang up.
So I’m not ready to be prescriptive on this one just yet. Riddle me this: why do we need clothes dryers?
This morning via an email to DeSmogBlog, I learned about RiverWired, a social network for the environmentally inclined:
RiverWired is the one place online for you and your friends to find more. More inspiration. More knowledge. More fun. Whether you want to find the perfect hybrid vehicle or simple, practical ideas for your greener lifestyle, we’ve got best of the web information and community for you.
That sounds a lot like WorldChanging, but the more, the merrier. Nice looking site design, regardless.
green is sexy came about when three friends realized that exchanging quips & tips on ways to make an impact on the environment was becoming daily conversation. They decided that, with a little bit of research and some help from their friends, they could spread the word to all sorts of people and really make a difference.
In addition to green, do you know what else is sexy? Rachel McAdams, that’s what. She’s one of the site’s founders, and gives me yet another reason (after talent, hotness and Canadianness) to launch a Malta chapter of her fan club.
I’ve always been fairly Green with a capital G. You can’t grow up middle-class on the west coast of Canada in the eighties without having environmental values pounded into you. Then I went to UVic, the heartland of environmentalism.
As such, it’s been interesting to watch environmental values creep, ever onwards, into the mainstream. Climate change seems to have been the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back, no doubt helped along by some recent radical weather patterns (which may or may not be attributable to global warming).
I was looking at the magazine rack in the grocery store today, and was struck by the prominence of this ethos in a wide variety of publications. I snapped some photos with my dodgy camera phone:
Whenever I see that Lou Lou magazine (yowza, that site), I always laugh. It’s a “shopping magazine”, which just means they’re lying less than all of the other advertising and advertorial-packed womens’ magazines.
