Loic Le Meur chides France Telecom for still delivering paper telephone books as he thinks that people "prefer their DSL line".

I disagree. I still need my paper phone book, or rather Yellow Pages. The internet is fine for looking for and buying some services. But not for everything. If you want to find a local plumber, electrician, mechanic etc then the paper Yellow Pages wins hands down.

Most of those people don't have websites but they do advertise in the Yellow Pages. This gives me a clue to what they are about before I phone them. I know if they are members of their trade association (which gives me some reassurance that I won't be ripped off.)

All I would find for most of them on Yell.com is a simple listing with their phone number.