This is from a list emailed me: 24 Things Headed for Extinction in America.

Yellow Pages
This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry. Much like newspapers, print Yellow Pages will continue to bleed dollars to their various digital counterparts, from Internet Yellow Pages (IYPs), to local search engines and combination search/listing services like Reach Local and Yodel.

Factors like an acceleration of the print 'fade rate' and the looming recession will contribute to the onslaught. One research firm predicts the falloff in usage of newspapers and print Yellow Pages could even reach 10% this year -- much higher than the 2%-3% fade rate seen in past years.

Classified Ads
The Internet has made so many things obsolete that newspaper classified ads might sound like just another trivial item on a long list. But this is one of those harbingers of the future that could signal the end of civilization as we know it. The argument is that if newspaper classifieds are replaced by free online listings at sites like Craigslist.org and Google Base, then newspapers are not far behind them.

I think I would miss is the hard copy Yellow Pages because when you search online, even though you tell it you want just local vendors who will actually drive to a rural location, a bunch of national vendors always come up at the top and have to be waded through to get to the local companies. I suppose they pay extra to get top billing by the search engines.

As to classifieds, our local small town paper started buying classifieds from some agency that covers several counties, so it is very hard to sort through it for local garage sales, or vacation cabin rentals in my area that are my competitors. I has totally put me off reading the classifieds, and Craigslist has proven to easier to use. In some respects newspapers have brought on their own demise.

Speaking of which, like a lot of cities, Denver CO has had two major newspapers - The Denver Post and The Rocky Mountain News. One was a broadsheet, one was a tabloid; one came in the morning, one came at night. One was supposedly white collar, the other blue collar.

Several years ago they merged under a single publisher, but continued to publish separately except on weekends: "The Rocky" came on Saturday, and The Post came on Sunday. Two days ago, after 150 years the Rocky Mountain News folded, so now Denver is a one-newspaper town except for small local area papers like the Littleton Independent and Westword, which is sort of an underground newspaper that is distributed free in restaurants.