"No phone call, no muffin basket, no flowers, nothing." Don & Walt

The Steely Dan guys write an open letter to Luke Wilson about his brother Owen, here

The guys are on tour along with Michael McDonald. Check out venues and dates here


Google Radio. Elinor Mills covers the Detroit debut of the new Google dMarc-AdSense radio product....

"I think dMarc has an opportunity for us to connect with advertisers we don't normally interact with," said John Fullam, vice president and market manager for Greater Media Philadelphia who said this week that Google ads were already being tested on Greater Media radio stations in Detroit. "It's big for radio."

So why the excitement? dMarc automates the process of buying ads, placing them in time slots and tracking them, which is usually done by ad agencies over the phone, experts said. Automation could lead to efficiency, and that means lower prices for advertisers while bringing in more sales for the radio stations.

The Google-dMarc system would be a big change from the current ad-buying system, where ad salespeople establish personal relationships with radio stations, Fullam said. Advertisers could better quantify how well an ad campaign is doing and modify the ads quickly depending on the response rate from listeners, he said. Read the CNET News article here

Ear Candy. Wunderkind Bob Pittman of MTV, AOL and Daily Candy fame throws in with the garageband.com gang, they plan to launch iLike a new social music discovery service. More via GigaOM here

Just say no. As a former resident of Dallas, former officer with CBS in Dallas and a former P1 of WRR the recurring news of a possible frequency+tower+cash swap for the city-owned station is always of interest. The latest seems to be a proposal to again trade the WRR commercial freq and tower lease for a non-commercial freq with associated xmtr location plus something like $50 mil in cash. My pov is the city can drive a much better bargain. So to my friends in Dallas here is an open offer of my services. Honored to assist the city in making the best of what you have and also interested in providing counsel and representation on any disposition options. On the latest offer - as I understand it - just say no. More via The Dallas Observer's Jim Schutze here Bravo Jim - good writing and job well done in keeping this issue where it belongs...in the open.