• by Steve Smith , Staff Writer @popeyesm, February 23, 2006

A freelancer on insane deadlines engages the clichéd "pizza+zip" search -- a lot. Talk about media fragmentation: A week of ordering pizzas starts with the Yellow Pages, where 36 million out of 116 million consumers search for their slices each year, according to the Yellow Pages Association.

Despite the competition, Verizon Information Services president Kathy Harlas told an investment conference that her firm is "growing our footprint, and we are in the expansion business." Sure, but try navigating 141 alpha-ordered, possibly outdated "pizza" listings across eight pages in my northern Delaware telephone directory. Call me Google-spoiled, but I want to mash them into some kind of order of proximity.

Fragmented media lesson No. 1: Media-savvy users now compare myriad information options to one another. Each shard of fragmented media, in this case print, makes us miss the conveniences of the others. Where are my maps? Where do I click for directions? So...

TUESDAY: ONLINE

I follow the Yellow Pages brands to their online home, where YellowPages.com CEO Charles Stubbs cedes nothing to search engines. "Our parent company has 4,000 full-time sales reps," he says, not to mention millions of merchant relationships Google doesn't. Still, Yellow Pages providers ultimately want to syndicate with the online natives to achieve greater distribution. Some of YellowPages.com's listings already offer value adds like "click-to-call," which rings and connects me directly to some vendors. (No pizza parlors yet, alas.) That's cool, but compared to Yahoo, YP.com's maps and interface are awkward, and unlike print, there are no display ads to inform me that my nearby Daffy Deli is a likeable homegrown alternative to Domino's.

WEDNESDAY: 411

Only 3 percent of pizza lovers use directory assistance, an $8 billion local slice challenged by onerous pricing ($1.25 and up) and free alternatives. But my live Mr. Verizon nails it, locating two nearby pizza places.

THURSDAY: WIRELESS

Hungry daughter in tow, my "Cingular specialist" one-ups 411. She plugs my road location into computerized audio directions. Wireless is 411's real growth category, because when kids cry for dinner you will pay $2 to get that Stephen Hawking voice to direct you step-by-step.

The future may lie with wireless search, which I access by sending "Pizza 19713" to 4Info's 44636 short code. "Our service is specifically driven for instant results," says Pankaj Shah, 4Info's CEO. It's no lie. I receive accurate but limited listings in seconds, and the text message direct-dials the pizza parlor. The click-to-call model has mobile search companies salivating, but still missing are comprehensive directories and sales forces to monetize it.

FRIDAY: YAHOO

Yahoo and Google Local are changing the game with map interfaces that add a sense of location, directions, and user reviews that challenge traditional directories. "They did a great job of redesigning what their local platforms will be," says Danielle Leitch, executive vice president, MoreVisibility, who sees local business finally buying in. With 20 percent of all searches going local, this integrated experience now informs our expectations for other platforms.

Yet only $500 million flowed to search ads in 2005; keyword buying remains daunting for the little guy. Lacking a local sales force, Yahoo's listings feel franchise-centric; there are no mom-and-pop display ads to level the playing field.

There are now multiple entry points to directory information, but none of them offer enough to complete a satisfying meal. Hungry consumers like me can sense that a fragmented industry needs to sit down and cut some deals.

MONDAY: "WEIGHT WATCHERS+19713"