New Yorkers Can Let Their Keystrokes Do the Walking

Offering a glimpse of how cyberspace is becoming shopping space, Nynex Corp. on Tuesday unveiled a computerized Yellow Pages system delivered via Prodigy that lets users browse through ads from their computer keyboards.

The on-line service will carry all of the regional phone company’s 280 printed directories for New York and New England, and it will have a few things paper Yellow Pages don’t. The service will let callers “drop into” advertisers’ stores for a look around.

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. Product offerings and prices can be updated as often as the 1,500 advertisers want.

The service now shows only color graphics and photos, but sound and action will be offered on-line in the near future, officials said. Interactive shopping will be available later on the service, which Nynex and Prodigy agreed to develop a year ago.