NYNEX Announces Online, Interactive Yellow Pages on PRODIGY

Business Wire, Jan 24, 1995

NEW YORK--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jan. 24, 1995--NYNEX today announced the nation's first advertiser-supported, online, interactive Yellow Pages, offering the service on PRODIGY(TM).

The NYNEX Interactive Yellow Pages offers businesses an innovative advertising medium and provides consumers with new shopping information, supplementing the choices available in more than 280 Yellow Pages and business-to-business directories in the Northeast.

Approximately 1,500 businesses are already providing advertising via NYNEX's online service, which has been in operation since early this month, employing specially designed advertisements that include multicolor graphics and photography. The adaptable advertising allows merchants to provide significant detail about their products and services and update their information for shoppers frequently.

For example, American Business Interiors, Inc. of Manhattan has placed more than 40 screens of advertising on the NYNEX Interactive Yellow Pages to showcase its furniture collection and will periodically update the ads as it revises its product line and pricing. Advertising on the service appeals to a wide variety of local businesses and institutions, such as Gentle Dental, Hotel Macklowe, the Lenox Hill Hospital and St. Moritz Hotel, all of whom are charter advertisers on the NYNEX Interactive Yellow Pages. In addition to local and regional businesses, national advertisers are using the new service, such as American Airlines, AVIS, Chrysler, and Minolta.

"The NYNEX Interactive Yellow Pages is a breakthrough development for online shopping information," said Mat Stover, president and CEO of NYNEX Information Resources Co. "It is the latest step in fulfilling NYNEX's commitment to leadership in helping buyers make well-informed purchases quickly and easily, and in helping businesses more effectively inform and serve their customers."

Prodigy Services Company President Ross Glatzer added, "We are excited about the addition of the NYNEX Interactive Yellow Pages to PRODIGY as the latest offering in our portfolio of online consumer services. We hope that this model will serve as the catalyst for the development of a nationwide online Yellow Pages service."

PRODIGY subscribers in downstate New York can use the new service at no additional charge. By simply entering the PRODIGY "Jump" word "NYNEX," PRODIGY members can access the NYNEX Interactive Yellow Pages and search for products and services from the 2.1 million listed businesses in the NYNEX region of New York and New England and from Southern New England Telephone Company (SNET) directories in Connecticut. Members can quickly and easily search specific Yellow Pages categories, geographical regions or types of businesses. PRODIGY members nationwide can access the service by dialing a long distance number.

NYNEX Interactive Yellow Pages advertiser and Executive Vice President of Giants Stadium, the Meadowlands, Michael Rowe said, "Our business is live people. Our potential customers are at home, looking for entertainment options. So it's not a question of whether we'd like to be on the interactive Yellow Pages - we think we need to be there."

Sound and video will be added in the near future to the NYNEX Interactive Yellow Pages. The new service will be expanded to Boston and eastern Massachusetts later this year. In the future, the NYNEX Interactive Yellow Pages will also provide users with interactive shopping capabilities.

Today's announcement of the NYNEX Interactive Yellow Pages comes just one year after NYNEX and Prodigy announced their alliance to develop and provide an online Yellow Pages service. The new service complements NYNEX's other online and CD-ROM-based information services offerings.

NYNEX Information Resources Company, based in Middleton, Massachusetts, is a leading provider of printed, online, interactive and CD-ROM directory and database information services. Available in the U.S. on DELPHI, the INTERNET, via the French Minitel system and PRODIGY, NYNEX's electronic products and services are offered in over 40 countries worldwide.

Prodigy Services Company is a joint venture of IBM and Sears. PRODIGY, with more than two million members, is America's most recognized online service. The PRODIGY service now offers live Chat, Internet Access, the largest and most active bulletin board network in the country, ESPNET, and hundreds of other features.

For additional information, Mat Stover, president and CEO of NYNEX Information Resources Company, may be reached on PRODIGY at DYNF16D. Ross Glatzer, president of Prodigy Services Company, may be reached on PRODIGY at HFDF07A.

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Wayne Mitchell, 508-762-2341