This year will be pivotal for the global Yellow Pages industry. Much like

    newspapers, print Yellow Pages 20 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

    Yodle 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.

    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.

    While Netflix is looking up at the moment, Blockbuster keeps closing store

    locations by the hundreds. It still has about 6,000 left across the world,

    but those keep dwindling and the stock is down considerably in 2008,

    especially since the company gave up a quest of Circuit City. Movie Gallery,

    which owned the Hollywood Video brand, closed up shop earlier this year.

    Countless small video chains and mom-and-pop stores have given up the ghost

    already.

    Dial-up connections have fallen from 40% in 2001 to 10% in 2008. The

    combination of an infrastructure to accommodate affordable high speed

    Internet connections and the disappearing home phone have all but pounded

    the final nail in the coffin of dial-up Internet access.

    According to a survey from the National Center for Health Statistics, at the

    end of 2007, nearly one in six homes was cell-only and, of those homes that

    had landlines, one in eight only received calls on their cells.

    Maryland's icon, the blue crab, has been fading away in Chesapeake Bay. Last

    year Maryland saw the lowest harvest (22 million pounds) since 1945. Just

    four decades ago the bay produced 96 million pounds. The population is down

    70% since 1990, when they first did a formal count. There are only about 120

    million crabs in the bay and they think they need 200 million for a

    sustainable population. Over-fishing, pollution, invasive species and global

    warming get the blame.

    For the better part of three decades, the VCR was a best-seller and staple

    in every American household until being completely decimated by the DVD, and

    now the Digital Video Recorder (DVR). In fact, the only remnants of the VHS

    age at your local Wal-Mart or Radio Shack are blank VHS tapes these days.

    Pre-recorded VHS tapes are largely gone and VHS decks are practically

    nowhere to be found. They served us so well.

    In the late 1990s, a pretty, iridescent green species of beetle, now known

    as the emerald ash borer, hitched a ride to North America with ash wood

    products imported from eastern Asia. In less than a decade, its larvae have

    killed millions of trees in the Midwest, and continue to spread. They've

    killed more than 30 million ash trees in southeastern Michigan alone, with

    tens of millions more lost in Ohio and Indiana. More than 7.5 billion ash

    trees are currently at risk.

    Amateur radio operators enjoy personal (and often worldwide) wireless

    communications with each other and are able to support their communities

    with emergency and disaster communications if necessary, while increasing

    their personal knowledge of electronics and radio theory. However,

    proliferation of the Internet and its popularity among youth has caused the

    decline of amateur radio. In the past five years alone, the number of people

    holding active ham radio licenses has dropped by 50,000, even though Morse

    Code is no longer a requirement.

    Thanks to our litigious society, swimming holes are becoming a thing of the

    past. '20 /20' reports that swimming hole owners, like Robert Every in High

    Falls, NY, are shutting them down out of worry that if someone gets hurt

    they'll sue. And that's exactly what happened in Seattle. The city of

    Bellingham was sued by Katie Hofstetter who was paralyzed in a fall at a

    popular swimming hole in Whatcom Falls Park. As injuries occur and lawsuits

    follow, expect more swimming holes to post 'Keep out!' signs.

    The increasing disappearance of answering machines is directly tied to No 20

    in our list -- the decline of landlines. According to USA Today, the number of

    homes that only use cell phones jumped 159% between 2004 and 2007. It has

    been particularly bad in New York; since 2000, landline usage has dropped

    55%. It's logical that as cell phones rise, many of them replacing

    traditional landlines, that there will be fewer answering machines.

    It doesn't require a statistician to prove the rapid disappearance of the

    film camera in America. Just look to companies like Nikon, the professionals

    choice for quality camera equipment. In 2006, it announced that it would

    stop making film cameras, pointing to the shrinking market -- only 3% of its

    sales in 2005, compared to 75% of sales from digital cameras and equipment.

    Before a few years ago, the standard 60-watt (or, yikes, 100-watt) bulb was

    the mainstay of every U.S. home. With the green movement and

    all-things-sustainable-energy crowd, the Compact Fluorescent Lightbulb (CFL)

    is largely replacing the older, Edison-era incandescent bulb. The EPA

    reports that 2007 sales for Energy Star CFLs nearly doubled from 2006, and

    these sales accounted for approximately 20 percent of the U.S. light bulb

    market. And according to USA Today, a new energy bill plans to phase out

    incandescent bulbs in the next four to 12 years.

    Bowling balls. US claims there are still 60 million Americans who bowl at

    least once a year, but many are not bowling in stand-alone bowling alleys.

    Today most new bowling alleys are part of facilities for all types of

    recreation including laser tag, go-karts, bumper cars, video game arcades,

    climbing walls and glow miniature golf.  Bowling lanes also have been added

    to many non-traditional venues such as adult communities, hotels and resorts

    and gambling casinos.

    According to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, in 1950, over half of the

    milk delivered was to the home in quart bottles, by 1963, it was about a

    third and by 2001, it represented only 0.4% percent. Nowadays most milk is

    sold through supermarkets in gallon jugs. The steady decline in home

    delivered milk is blamed, of course, on the rise of the supermarket,

    better home refrigeration and longer-lasting milk. Although some milkmen

    still make the rounds in pockets of the U.S., they are certainly a dying

    breed.

    In 2006, the Radicati Group estimated that, worldwide, 183 billion e-mails

    were sent each day. Two million each second. By November of 2007, an

    estimated 3.3 billion Earthlings owned cell phones, and 80% of the world's

    population had access to cell phone coverage. In 2004, half-a-trillion text

    messages were sent, and the number has no doubt increased exponentially

    since then. So where amongst this gorge of gabble is there room for the

    elegant, polite hand-written letter?

    It is estimated that 100 years ago, as many as two million horses were

    roaming free within the United States. In 2001, National Geographic News

    estimated that the wild horse population had decreased to about 50,000 head.

    Currently, the National Wild Horse and Burro Advisory board states that

    there are 32,000 free roaming horses in ten Western states, with half of

    them residing in Nevada. The Bureau of Land Management is seeking to reduce

    the total number of free range horses to 27,000, possibly by selective

    euthanasia.

    According to an American Bankers Assoc. report, a net 23% of consumers plan

    to decrease their use of checks over the next two years, while a net 14%

    plan to increase their use of PIN debit.  Bill payment remains the last

    stronghold of paper-based payments -- for the time being. Checks continue to

    be the most commonly used bill payment method, with 71% of consumers paying

    at least one recurring bill per month by writing a check. However, on a

    bill-by-bill basis, checks account for only 49% of consumers' recurring bill

    payments (down from 72% in 2001 and 60% in 2003).

    During the peak in 1958, there were more than 4,000 drive-in theaters in

    this country, but in 2007 only 405 drive-ins were still operating. Exactly

    zero new drive-ins have been built since 2005. Only one reopened in 2005 and

    five reopened in 2006, so there isn't much of a movement toward reviving the

    closed ones.

    Despite what's been in the news lately, the measles and mumps actually,

    truly are disappearing from the United States. In 1964, 212,000 cases of

    mumps were reported in the U .S. By 1983, this figure had dropped to 3,000,

    thanks to a vigorous vaccination program. Prior to the introduction of the

    measles vaccine, approximately half a million cases of measles were reported

    in the U.S. annually, resulting in 450 deaths. In 2005, only 66 cases were

    recorded.

    Perhaps nothing on our list of disappearing America is so dire; plummeting

    so enormously; and so necessary to the survival of our food supply as the

    honey bee. Very scary. 'Colony Collapse Disorder,' or CCD, has spread

    throughout the U.S. and Europe over the past few years, wiping out 50% to

    90% of the colonies of many beekeepers -- and along with it, their

    livelihood.

While the TV evening newscasts haven't gone anywhere over the last several

decades, their audiences have. In 1984, in a story about the diminishing

returns of the evening news, the New York Times reported that all three

network evening-news programs combined had only 40.9 million viewers. Fast

forward to 2008, and what they have today is half that.

According to the Consumer Electronics Association, 85% of homes in the U.S.

get their television programming through cable or satellite providers. For

the remaining 15% -- or 13 million individuals -- who are using rabbit ears

or a large outdoor antenna to get their local stations, change is in the air

If you are one of these people you'll need to get a new TV or a converter

box in order to get the new stations which will only be broadcast in digital

Since the 1930s, the number of family farms has been declining rapidly.

According to the USDA, 5.3 million farms dotted the nation in 1950, but this

number had declined to 2.1 million by the 2003 farm census (data from the

2007 census hasn't yet been published). Ninety-one percent of the U.S. farms

are small family farms. 

Change is interesting...but to us "old" folks also somewhat disheartening.