Story · Chapter 1
Chapter 1 · The Before Times

Before the Algorithm
ruled the world

When finding a plumber meant flipping through a thick directory, and hoping your competitor didn't buy a bigger ad than you.

The old discovery sources

Six ways a customer found you before Google.

1883 – decline
The Yellow Pages
Business listings printed by category. The story goes that a Cheyenne, Wyoming printer ran out of white paper in 1883 and used yellow instead; the first official directory followed in 1886. Alphabetical order shaped visibility, which is why so many trades chose names that sorted first.
Early 1700s – today
Classifieds
Newspaper classified advertising dates back to the early 1700s. For generations the back pages carried jobs, housing and local services.
1995 – today
Craigslist
Craig Newmark began it in 1995 as an email list of San Francisco events. It moved to the web in 1996 and was incorporated in 1999. Digital classifieds with no ranking algorithm and no analytics.
Forever
Word of mouth
Still the strongest form of trust, but limited to the people you already know.
1940s – 2000s
TV and radio
Broadcast reached many people at once, but could not target them or show who acted on an ad.
1800s – 2000s
Direct mail
Flyers, coupons and catalogs mailed to households. The only measurement was the coupons that came back.
How people found businesses
  1. 1883
    Yellow paper
    The commonly told account: a Cheyenne printer runs out of white paper.
  2. 1886
    First directory
    Reuben H. Donnelley publishes the first official Yellow Pages, in Chicago.
  3. 1995–96
    Craigslist
    An email list in 1995, on the web in 1996, incorporated in 1999.
  4. 1998
    Google
    Founded. How businesses get found starts to change.
  5. 2007
    The iPhone
    Search moves into people's pockets.
The measurement problem

For most of the twentieth century, a local business had two questions it could not answer: who saw my ad? and which ad made the phone ring? You ran the ad, and the phone rang or it didn't. There was no data to optimize against.

Search changed that. For the first time, demand for a service was visible as it happened, and so was the fact that a competitor was showing up when you weren't. That is the thread through the rest of this story.

If your business wasn't in the directory, you were hard to find, and there was little other option.The reality of local commerce before the internet
Sources & notes
  1. Yellow Pages origin: Wikipedia, "Yellow pages". The 1883 paper story is widely repeated; the 1886 Chicago directory is the documented first official edition.
  2. Craigslist: Wikipedia and Britannica (email list 1995, web 1996, incorporated 1999).
  3. Google founding (1998) and iPhone launch (2007): company announcements.