A couple weeks ago, I mentioned to a friend that someone in my hometown was looking for banjo lessons. This person had posted about it on the “Crystal Lake, Illinois” Facebook page. Predictably, this led me to then send my friend screenshots of other posts, including one laden with acronyms and shit emojis asking for plumber recommendations. To which my friend said, “How far we’ve come in 20 years. Instead of literally having a book full of plumbers’ contact info (and every other profession) sent right to our doors, we’ve opted to blast a question to everyone we know.”
I suppose this is what Yelp and Google Maps and, well, yellowpages.com are trying to replicate, but with the added depth of reviews. And the reviews are useful, but at the same time, so was having a big book with the name and number of every plumber and electrician and funeral home in town. It’s kind of like when you see a kid wrestling with the formatting on some digital math assignment instead of being allowed to just write the dang thing out on a sheet of looseleaf. Are we sure this is a better system? Maybe I should poll the “Crystal Lake, Illinois” Facebook page.
