"Whenever you find yourself on the side of the majority, it is time to pause and reflect." Mark Twain

"You have to write the book that wants to be written. And if the book will be too difficult for grown-ups, then you write it for children." Madeleine L'Engle

"If you don't stand for something you will fall for anything." Malcolm X

Today's image: Confusion by dave nitsche. Wonderful. Thank you for sharing.

All or Nothing

Pick one

The July numbers are not encouraging.

Seems that folks are finally coming around to understanding some of what we have been blogging about here. The economy, as related to the ad spend, will not get better this year and next year will - most likely - be flat for radio, down for television, up single digits for interactive and the days of double digit growth for cable are clearly behind us.

The solution set (suggested here previously) involves getting different. Those that continue to waste valuable time and resources trying to get better will fail.

Here's the simple truth...There has never been a better time to be working in electronic media.

Trade secret: On the day job our most successful clients are using the Kevin Sweeney "4 Point Pitch."

1. [Target demo] is important your business.
2. Traditional media do not effectively reach this important market.
3. [Company name] efficiently reaches this important market daily.
4. Here is our strategy for improving your share with this important market.

Granted, this is much more work, exceedingly more difficult, than submitting on an avail. This is about creating wealth by adding genuine value. It's about relationships and delivering measurable results.

You can complain about the economy, burn bandwidth in another blame storming session or you can stop doing what's not working and begin the reinvention of your business. Word to the wise - those that wait for things to get better will not have jobs next year. [Hint: Automotive is not coming back, it's over, Sparky. If the CEO of your company is blaming the economy you need to get busy planning your escape, you deserve to work for a much smarter person. Life is too long to work for idiots. Friends don't let friends work for hacks.]

Closed circuit to Big Co: Here's a clue for that certain large organization that has a music player in private beta, it's the one that I am not allowed to talk about, blog about or suggest to others. Your beta sucks. No, your beta really sucks. The solution. Stop burning money and buy Pandora or Grooveshark, it's mad cool. Thank me later.

Bonus: Black vinyl fashback, Chicago style. Ronnie Rice & The New Colony Six - I Will Always Think About You via YouTube here. "...the nights, the lights were yours and mine, it's true..." A special long distance dedication ;)

"The lure of the distant and the difficult is deceptive. The great opportunity is where you are." John Burroughs

"Whatever we succeed in doing is a transformation of something we have failed to do. Thus, when we fail, it is only because we have given up." Paul Valery

"In prosperity, caution; in adversity, patience." Dutch proverb

Today's image: untitled by melinka!. Great shot. Thank you for sharing.

Early returns: Pandora kills on iPhone. Adding a new listener every two seconds, average time spent is over an hour a day. Jason Kincaid blogs Pandora Usage Stats Prove It's iPhone's Killer App here. Kudos, Jason and congrats to team Pandora.

This is how he rolls: Frank Gruber drives to work in DC and listens to Chicago radio thanks to AOL Radio and his iPhone. Check out the vid. Thanks for sharing, Frank. Very cool.


AOL Radio iPhone App [Episode 33 - SOMEWHAT FRANK TV] from Frank Gruber on Vimeo.

Bonus: Apple's walled garden. Dave Winer puts it out there (again) and he's right. Bravos, Dave.

Congrats & cheers: NPR opens new API. Very smart! Public media leads, commercial media follows, or not.


Social Media Landscape graphic thanks to Fred Cavazza [Related post] Click graphic to enlarge. Closed circuit to Fred - you need to add disqus.

Photo: sunsmoke by Karmalize. Very cool. Thank you very much!

"Goodwill is the one and only asset that competition cannot undersell or destroy." Marshall Field

"As soon as a true thought has entered our mind, it gives light which makes us see a crowd of other objects which we have never perceived before." Francois de Chateaubriand

"If the world is cold, make it your business to build fires." Horace Traubel

CBS, again most watched. CBS is saying when the numbers are in they will show them #1 in prime for the fifth-straight year. NBC finishes fourth for the fourth-straight year. In the 18-49 demo Fox leads 5.23 mil, CBS 4.85 mil, ABC 4.55 mil and NBC 4.05 mil. Michael Janofsky has more at Bloomberg here.

CNN to deliver more local. CNN buys a minority share of Minneapolis based Internet Broadcasting giving it access to the local news content of some 70 stations. Emily Steel has the story for WSJ here. Cory Bergman has a good overview with comments at LostRemote here. The end game is local, that's the ultimate destination of online wired and wireless. My thought is the dead tree guys are still leading online local. TV is playing catch up while radio is not yet in the game. Still seems a perfect opportunity for broadcast to lead development of local online.

Now that CNN Pipeline is free they should ring up Dave Winer and learn about his Checkbox News concept. Rather than mess around with their main page, an idea certain to rattle the powers that be, CNN would benefit from putting Dave's idea into play as a part of the new and free Pipeline. The notion that someone at CNN will decide what "local" stories are linked "on merit" preserves an obsolete editorial control. Give me, the reader, control. For example, let's say Minneapolis - St Paul is one of the 70 IB local CNN affiliates. Give me the option of electing "local" Twin Cities stories. Let me also decide the topics of interest (e.g., Twin Cities entertainment news or Twins baseball).

Please stop telling me what the top stories are and please start giving me what I want.

To have access to 70 streams of local content without making 100% of that content available and easy to get would be missing a major opportunity. Dave's Checkbox News concept might be a solid solution that takes advantage of Pipeline's already cool technology and creates real value for the reader. While you're at it, where's my "local" widget?

Congrats & cheers: Bob Shannon on his excellent writing about the great Fred Winston. Bob's writing, All Them Big Dogs, is available on AllAccess.com (free sub req). Dave Sifry and team on the latest refresh of Technorati. Six months in the making, read all about it here. Pandora + Sprint = personalized radio on your phone, very smart. Details here. The gang at Feedburner on getting a cool 100 million from Google, Michael Arrington has the details with comments here. As was said here yesterday, big dogs eat first and they eat till they're full.

Sir Paul vid debuts on YouTube: Smart. Back story via ET here. Catch the vid Dance Tonight @ 5pm eastern today.

Thank you very much: Ron Fell, the best of men, checks in with photos to share. He's just back to the states after a trip to Hong Kong, Vietnam, Thailand and Singapore. Watch this space for Ron's pics, coming soon. Thanks Ron! Mark Levy, the RAB's cool young turk of training, for his kind words about A Great General Manager. Thanks Mark!

Mileage may vary: Attempted to purchase The History of Rock and Roll CDs yesterday. Submitted all the info. Directed to a page saying I would be getting a confirming email. No confirming email as of this morning. No charge to my card yet. Hate it when the cart fails to work as advertised. Hey Bill, you're losing $$$. Will try it again. Should you be interested in getting your very own copy of this uber-cool commemorative audio, here's the place.