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Competing local
phone directories will
soon get ratings service

Hawaii's growing telephone directory industry is working to beef up its street cred. Living and dying by ratings is nothing new for television and radio folk. Efforts by the print media to boost numbers in circulation audits are a similar phenomenon.

Now, upstart Ad-Ventures Hawaii LLC, which publishes phone directories statewide, is crowing about new, independent data that will be compiled to measure the market share of local directories.

California-based Knowledge Networks will gather information "for directory publishers about phone book users," Ad-Ventures said in a statement. Knowledge Networks is seeking to sell the data to local phone directory companies.

The research is to be available next year.

David Akina, president of competing publisher Paradise Pages, spoke yesterday with the Association of Directory Publishers about the research, and said he wants more information before he pays for it. "That is something I'm looking at," he said.

Ron Montgomery, vice president of directories for the local phone company, Hawaiian Telcom, was dismissive of the research. He said he didn't see any comparison to his competitors as apples-to-apples since Hawaiian Telcom is regulated as a public utility.

How quickly they forget

Verizon Communications Inc. relinquished control of "the phone company" to the Carlyle Group last month. Yesterday, Verizon released a list of the Top 25 Most Fun U.S. Cities on its online directory assistance page, www.superpages.com.

Hawaii cities were screamingly absent.

The top three were Dallas, Phoenix and Miami. Tampa, Fla., Seattle and Clearwater, Fla., placed last.

"We did not include Hawaii in our compilation of data because we no longer own those (phone) books," said Dana Russell, spokeswoman.

So Hawaii is not chopped liver, though one quote in a Verizon statement could be taken the wrong way: "We think these listings are representative of the places where a tourist or local resident could have a really good time," said Eric Chandler, vice president of e-commerce marketing for superpages.com.

"If people were asked for their opinion, we're confident Hawaii would rank high on any list of fun places to be in America," said Darlene Morikawa, manager of public relations and communications for the Hawaii Visitors & Convention Bureau. "There is such an incredible array of fun and exhilarating activities to do here that are available nowhere else."