Everything's coming up yellow, RHCs link up for national on-line directory service

In an attempt to reclaim advertising revenue from on-line directory competitors, Ameritech, BellSouth, U S West and Pacific Bell announced a joint on-line Yellow Pages service last week - leaving Bell Atlantic and Nynex out in the cold.

Internet users can connect to the service via banner ads on high-traffic Web sites, starting with the Yahoo! search engine site. Users will be able to click on a map of the United States, and the service will direct their information requests to the directory for that area.

However, requests for listings from Bell Atlantic and Nynex directories will be divided between Ameritech and U S West, which are receiving that information from third-party vendors.

"They never asked us," said a Nynex spokesman when asked why the company wasn't participating.

The four Bell regional holding companies aren't ruling out the possibility of including other telcos in the service later on, said Mark Stevens, director of Internet marketing for BellSouth IntelliVentures. Nynex operates the country's first advertiser-supported Internet Yellow Pages service, Big Yellow, which will be a direct competitor to the RHCs' new venture.

The push for advertisers is a big reason behind the new venture, officials from participating RHCs say.

"This provides a huge benefit to the advertiser in that he knows that all traffic on our directory site is intended for that specific geographic area," said Valeri Marks, president of Ameritech Interactive Media Services.

On-line directory advertising is turning out to be big business. Ad sales on U S West's Dex Internet Yellow Pages service has doubled every month for the last three months, said Jeff Tarr, U S West's general manager of the service.

But one analyst believes that they shouldn't have to depend on those gateways to draw users to the service. "If Pacific Bell's brand name and URL address doesn't come to mind immediately, and if they're going to rely on someone seeing its ad on Yahoo!, then it's failed," said Greg Wester, research director at The Yankee Group.