"While the right to talk may be the beginning of freedom, the necessity of listening is what makes the right important." Walter Lippmann

"Silence is an answer to a wise man." Euripides

"The attempt and not the deed confounds us." Shakespeare

Today's image: Peaceful Reflections by ballycroy. Awesome. Thanks for sharing.

Fine line drawn by Dave Winer..."FriendFeed is to Twitter as WordPress is to Blogger" [via Twitter]

Marc Benioff, Salesforce.com CEO: "The dead-end suggestion box and the auto-reply are symbols of corporate indifference and are no longer tolerated." Jeff Jarvis shares that remark and goes on to write "But the real question for companies and institutions is how willing they are to let their constituents into the process of doing their jobs. Can customers help design products? Can citizens write legislation? Can readers suggest stories newspapers should cover? Your constituents are already talking about you and joining a conversation with them is a fine first step. But are you willing to let them sit at the next desk to work with you? Will you be that open?" Read Jeff's entire article via The Guardian here. Kudos, Jeff. Jeff is also blogging on the FCC here.

Getting Schooled: Bravos to Entercom. They're creating truly unique experiences for aspiring musicians and music fans - encounters with their favorite artists. They've signed retailer Guitar Center as sponsor. They've created web assets to support the initiative [Get Schooled with Guitar Center], listeners qualify to participate via radio station websites. A very cool concept and well done. Creating memorable experiences, real dream come true moments, is powerful magic. My suggestion is this may represent an excellent opportunity for MasterCard sponsorship, what Entercom is creating are moments that one can not purchase, they are indeed "priceless." My thanks to Emily DiTomo for the tip.

Culture of the tribe: Jay Rosen has written an important piece on the brave new world of semi-pro journalism [Open Systems, Closed Systems and Trauma in the Press].

Can you hear me now? Might want to check your website as a listener or viewer would in attempting to contact you. Broadcast site after broadcast site feature Contact Us pages filled with email addresses, however, very few provide the primary telephone number. Getting in touch with station based colleagues and not having their direct dials often means visiting their website. More often than not one finds numbers for the studio, the newsroom, the sales department but no mention of the main number. Thinking my best bet is the sales dept I often call that number, usually get voicemail and typically become captive to the automated attendant. Provide the main number, answer your phone. My sense is there's competitive advantage here as no one is doing this.

Congrats & cheers: Patrick Goldstein adding a blog, The Big Picture, to his weekly LA Times column on media, entertainment and pop culture. Bonneville, Chicago on their trend, two stations in the top ten, 25-54 (WTMX & WDRV). CBS' Norm Winer on again posting a top ten money demo showing for WXRT.

Photo: Just Drive She Said by Thomas Hawk. Wonderful! Thank you.

"Too many pieces of music finish too long after the end." Igor Stravinsky

"Whatever women do they must do twice as well as men to be thought half as good. Luckily, this is not difficult." Charlotte Whitton

"A poem is never finished, only abandoned." Paul Valery

Rabbit, rabbit

Half a loaf: The FCC issued rules for the 700MHz auction yesterday. Tom Evslin blogs First Impression - FCC Rules for the 700 MHz Auction. Google's Richard Whitt weighs in blogging Signs of real progress at the FCC. Cory Boles covers the story for WSJ FCC Backs Open Spectrum Access. John Markoff and Matt Richtel are on it for NYT FCC Hands Google a Partial Victory. The good news here is the commission has clearly favored open access to software and devices. To get into the auction you'll need the minimum reserve - $4.6Bil. The bad news here is if you want to play you've got to pay as the commission will not allow any reselling of the spectrum.

Smartest guy in the biz: No matter your opinion of his dead tree assets or his Fox News operation, one must give credit to Rupert Murdoch for being smart, very smart. As David Carr said in this morning's NYT "Note to other media moguls keeping track at home: Mr. Murdoch just bought the scorecard."

Can Murdoch Charge for WSJ.com and Give It Away Too? Good piece by Saul Hansell via NYT. Deal Will Test a Media Titan's Instincts Martin Peers, Suzanne Vranica and Stephanie Kang via WSJ

One day, in the not too distant future, when we are all plugged into and participating in the great information matrix, we will look with bemused astonishment at what we once called news. Michael Rosenblum - The Information "Explosion" First 08 candidate to engage Michael as an adviser gets ten IQ points.

Bonus: Go Deep, show 15 is now available. Download the cool webcast here. Bravo Bruce! Outstanding show.

Excuse me, Waiter! “I’m not going to say the word drunk. They were very happy. They were very excited.” As well they should have been. A wealthy gentleman nearby had been buying them their drinks, which included bottles of Montrachet, Cristal and Cheval Blanc. The total bill came to more than $7,000" Frank Bruni via NYT Fine Diner to Riffraff: Tipsy Tales of 4-Star Benders

Congrats & cheers: WSJ writers and editors for their excellent job covering the Dow Jones sale process. Truly, Pulitzer quality reporting. Dave Logan and crew on their launch of The New B973. David Faber on breaking and owning the Dow Jones story. Bob Hamilton on another great book in Miami. Youngsy, Dic Youngs, 46 years on the air in Des Moines, 42 of those at KIOA, a living legend of wireless, steps down from his pm drive show. He will continue hosting his Original Saturday Night Oldies Show on cluster-mate KRNT.

"When the cat and mouse agree, the grocer is ruined." Persian proverb

"Television is a medium because anything well done is rare." Ernie Kovacs

"Nobody can make you feel inferior without your consent." Eleanor Roosevelt

The great radio star Fred Allen often gets credit for the Ernie Kovacs quotation above. Heard the attribution to each over the years. One of my favorite Allen lines is "Imitation is the sincerest form of television."

Obvious. Topical. Local.

The thesis first became known to me as one of the "Rules of Three." This one credited to the genius Robert Todd Storz, the wunderkind regarded as the first architect of Top 40 radio. Obvious, topical, local. The Storz Rule of Three. Good content is based in one or more of those three characteristics. On the day job, working with broadcast talent, we spend a considerable amount of time on storytelling issues. Great storytelling begins with good judgment, superior story selection - the right stories told in an engaging, arresting, memorable fashion.

The ultimate destination of the internet is local. Increasingly, our finding is the Storz Rule of Three serves as an excellent standard for online content. It works on and off line to wonderful effect. Obvious. Topical. Local.

Which reminds me of the legendary Bill Stewart and the counsel to talent during his run with the great Gordon McLendon organization. "Be funny, Be informative, or Be quiet."

Why Feedburner is trouble: Dave Winer offers a caution...

"People at Microsoft used to say that Windows isn't ready to ship until Lotus doesn't run. That's not a typo. You'd think it would be the other way around, that a popular operating system would never hold the users of a popular spreadsheet hostage. But it could happen when they have their own spreadsheet and want you to switch. Or if they want everyone to put ads in their feeds. Who would miss a few blogs here and there, don't we all use Blogger anyway (that's one area where they haven't taken over, btw, thankfully)." Dave's entire post here. Scobleizer with comments here. Readers of this humble blog know, I heart Google and trust they will do the right thing.

Googling the FCC: Speaking of Google, Tom Evslin lends his pov to Google's 700Mhz auction offer...

"Two problems with the Google offer: at&t and Verizon hate it and it probably would result in the 700MHz auction bringing in somewhat less money (immediately) for the treasury than an alternative which would encourage the telcos to bid." Read Tom's post with back story here. Agree with Tom on this one. Bravo Tom, good writing!

What future for PBS? Michael Rosenblum writes...

"So the question become instead, what is the best role for PBS in a country where all the rest of TV is commercial and we pretty much refuse to fund it. PBS must contend itself with beggaring really, to corporations and communities. This is distasteful and a disgrace to our country, but that is the way it is at the moment. With their limited resources, and with the democratization of video exploding - and no major network really paying all that much attention, I think that the notion of publisher of quality (from ‘us out here with the cameras’) is a unique niche that PBS could quickly occupy. No one else is doing it."

Bravo Michael! Read his post with comments here.

Bonus: The Caffeinated Librarian. Lonesome Music. My thanks to the Blogger gang for the tips.

Congrats & cheers: Madison's own uber-cool Ben Sidran on his Talking Jazz box set. Highly recommended. More info here. Steve Coll named prexy of the New America Foundation. Marc Andreessen on the sale of his company, Opsware, to HP for $1.6 Bil. Vinny Brown and his WBLS crew posting #2 25-54 in the new book ahead of #3 WLTW! Jeff Siegel named VP, Home Entertainment (Americas) for FremantleMedia. Matthew Weiner on the debut of his very cool new original series Mad Men (AMC).