InfoUSA verifying local listings. Has this business model lost its legs?

Mike Blumenthal writes a blog on Google Maps and Yahoo Local Search. This morning he blogged on a verification call received from InfoUSA, and commented that they didn’t collect very much data on the brief call (no hours of operation, business function, ect)

I am curious how merchants would feel if InfoUSA used an automated call, but asked more questions? Better or worse than a live a operator? In addition to the data InfoUSA didn’t collect on the call to Mike, its interesting that they don't seem to use the data from their call disposition logs. A disconnected number is most likely out-of-business, but what does a no answer, busy and/or IVR / voice mail tell us?

FastCall411 research indicates that to 87% of users *availability* is an important factor when choosing a local merchant. Answering the phone and responding to a consumer call is a measure of availability. Undoubtedly important data that InfoUSA is either not collecting, or not licensing to their clients.

Last , a company frequently in the mobile local search news, MerchantCircle, has verified a ton a local merchants using a very different approach to InfoUSA (and with a different biz model). The calls are automated, but the merchant has a chance to add as much details to a MerchantCircle page as they wish. I think MerchantCirlce has the better model as I can’t see the data aggregation companies like InfoUSA maintaining their model.