Dex One put out a release that says the company is making a bigger push with video:
Dex One recently made video a standard part of its online Enhanced Pack service – thus bringing video to Enhanced Pack clients at no additional charge. This enables these clients to have video, as well as prominent ad placement, logos and other images on DexKnows.com . . .
There are no hard numbers in the release but Dex I’m sure sees video as a potential differentiator for consumer-users of DexKnows and SMB advertisers. It may also be part of a retention strategy.
The most interesting part of the release in my view is the pricing discussion:
Dex One recently made video a standard part of its online Enhanced Pack service – thus bringing video to Enhanced Pack clients at no additional charge.
Making video a line item that has to be considered separately is probably a deterrent vs. saying “step up to the enhanced pack and you get video for free.” That makes it simpler to buy and sell.
There’s a fair amount of empirical and survey based evidence of video’s effectiveness and appeal but I’m wondering if anyone has direct experience as a SMB advertiser or on behalf of a client.
Screenwerk 
May 12, 2010 at 8:54 pm
I also see this as a smart SEO play. YP’s lost the user gen content battle (naturally, it required consumer cooperation), but are better positioned for SEO boost via outsourcing the creation and distribution management of video content (which requires sales/presence).
May 14, 2010 at 4:44 pm
Since 60% of searches for local products and services has moved online, it’s only natural for the yellow pages to put interactive content up in hopes of getting more searches, and hence, more pairs of eyes on their ads. As it is, even with interactive content, they still won’t make it, because you can get the same thing from google local search for free. While most mom and pop companies don’t know that yet, they will in the next few years, and then there won’t be any rason to pay for advertising in your local yellow pages.
If you’ve paid attention over the last 5 years, the thickness of the Dex yellow pages has been cut in half, showing that more and more businesses are pulling out of them, or opting for a smaller ad. The main reason is that they are no longer relavant, except for a few of the older generation who are still not Net savy. But, in the next 10-20 years, paper yellow pages will go the way of the caveman.