"It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him." J.R. Tolkien

"It is a malady of our age that the young are so busy teaching us that they have no time left to learn." Eric Hoffer

"As bread is the staff of life, the simple sustenance of the body, so appreciation is the food of the soul." Priscilla Wayne

Today's image: Verduras by toalafoto. Great color. Thanks for sharing.

Too early to tell: The first wave of reports related to the audio apps used on the new iPhone 3G are a bit over the top. I love Pandora, won't give up my last.fm, and you can count me a fan boy of the AOL Radio app. Yes, my media behavior vis-a-vis audio has changed dramatically since Saturday when I picked up the new phone. It's simply the profound effect of the new toy. My "new" audio media behavior is an anomaly, aberrant noise, ephemeral stuff. Yesterday afternoon I was back to ATC in the office and in the car via FM radio. Last night I was back to playing with audio on the iPhone taking a bite out of broadcast and cable video. What's happening here is the natural, expected, new toy joy. It is generating a considerable load of evangelism.

What is not happening, just yet, is the death of radio. Yeah, I know, it is so damn cool to call stuff dead. Never mind those that, again, take this latest moment of new tech to proclaim the end of AM & FM broadcast. The first tribe of wireless is very much alive and enjoying 230 million domestic uniques a week (wonder how much online traffic American broadcast is getting from outside the country? Betcha it's a bunch).

It's the money: If you want to slow the adoption rate of anything find a way for it to cost money. That's the single biggest obstacle facing iPhone, and the other mobile platforms, in achieving mass adoption of their audio alternatives to broadcast radio - the hard cost of hardware and service. Once we reach the point where the expense is determined by the user and not the providers there will be excellent opportunities to capture major attention share, please take a moment and jump to Project VRM.

Think beyond today: Web 2.0 ace Kurt Hanson gets it exactly right about the iPhone radio apps. Read Kurt's post here. Bravos, Kurt. Well said. My thought is it is not important to predict the future when it may prove more practical and productive to predict or imagine a future. We need to change the denominator and to do that we are going to need to get into the new business of market creation rather than obsessing exclusively over market preservation. In sum, there has never been a better time than the present to be involved in the business of audio and video. The future of media is limited only by your imagination. Once the technology becomes transparent, and it will, the potential is practically without limits.

Fun with numbers: Rank the following syndi TV shows by size of audience. Check the answers below. Dr. Phil, Entertainment Tonight, Jeopardy, Judge Judy, Oprah.

Bonus: Starbucks' Lessons for Premium Brands. Harvard Business School professor John Quelch says the biggest mistake Starbucks made was going public. Read the article here. [Related - Professor Quelch's blog]

Arbitron has released a comparison of Diary vs PPM reach data for Los Angeles. Click on image to enlarge. Great to see radio programming ace Jhani Kaye getting proper credit for his exceptional work. Congrats to all.

Fun with numbers - solution: Ranked by size of audience. Jeopardy, Judge Judy, Oprah, Entertainment Tonight, Dr. Phil. The #1 syndi show remains, as evah, Wheel of Fortune.