28March2024

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Impact of the Decision To Leave the EU

Impact of the Decision To Leave the EU

It is now clear that the British people have made the choice to leave the European Union. The countr...


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Digital Disruption Continues in the Traditional Print Market - Philip Voice

For some people it seemed like a moment that wasn't possible and would never come. Hibu - formerly Yell and owner of the Yellow Pages brand - looks like it's finally run out of steam under the pressure of its debt pile. The once mighty Yell brand was worth, at its height, some £7billion.

Those of us who pre-date the internet will remember how dominant Yell was. The Yellow Pages directory could be found next to most people's telephone and if vandals hadn't set it alight, a copy of the Yellow Pages could be found in a good old red telephone box (another victim of technology disruption: but that's another story).

I love this quote from The Media Briefing website:

"Without wanting to oversimplify this conundrum, these days even JR Hartley would have just Googled it and bought it from Amazon."
Search engines and online information remain a disruptive challenge for all printed publications. It is printed trade publications that are especially vulnerable.

I've always maintained that Yell (sorry I can't bring myself to call it Hibu) will jettison its printed media completely, default on its debt and return as a pure digital play.

Tomorrow we may find that Yell's battle weary shareholders have lost out as the company hands control to its creditors.

If there is a debt for equity swap as rumoured then that might be the time to watch a relatively small Hibu - in terms of market share - become a moderate success.

Personally I think Hibu will then be sold to venture capitalists or absorbed into another content/B2B player.

One thing is for sure, Yell is completely dead now.

 

 

After starting my garden maintenance and landscaping business in 1984 and running it for 21 years I decided I needed a change of direction (probably a mid life crisis, no seriously! :-0) Together with my family, wife Donna, Son Henry and Daughter Fleur (not forgetting Hector the Black Labrador) I moved to France in search of an old farmhouse to renovate. In the interim period whilst waiting for the contract to go through I started writing a blog. Initially just to keep a diary for family and friends to keep up with our progress if they wished but then it occurred to me that there isn't a real time watcher of the landscape industry in the UK. I didn't want to waste my experience and experiences so I decided I could put all of this Juice to good use so I started Landscape Juice.

Source: Landscape Juice - Digital Disruption Continues in the Traditional Print Market - Philip Voice