Via the Blog Herald, I came across this article Imagining the Google Future on CNNMoney:

U.S. companies still devote more ad dollars to the Yellow Pages than to the Internet (which accounts for less than 5 percent of overall ad spending). Yet Americans now spend more than 30 percent of their media-consuming time surfing the Web. When the ad dollars catch up to the trend, a mountain of cash awaits, and Google is positioned like no one else to scoop it up.

Hmmm… According to this research, total US spending on advertising in 2006 is expected to be around $152 billion, with Internet ads taking about 9.1% of that which would be around $14 billion.

Online: Where The Growth Is from BusinessWeek on Dec. 26, 2005 called the Yellow Pages market “among the hottest media bets” and noted it was $15 billion a year market. The article noted:

Analysts at Kelsey Group forecast that $5 billion of locally targeted, small-business advertising will move online by 2009. But Yellow Pages companies have two things Web companies like: Internet-like margins of 40% or more and armies of local sales reps — which portals don’t have — to sell advertising to small companies that lack tech savvy.

So it looks like the market size of the two is similar at this point in time, with Yellow Pages having a slight edge. Will the presence of sales reps be enough to transform Yellow Pages into a gateway to online advertising?