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You have to love those Silicon Alley Insiders.  Every day, they send out a cool chart that helps put our media lives in perspective. The other day, the graph du jour showed the fastest growing app categories, and you’ll be gratified to learn that music-centric apps are among the biggest winners. This is especially important when […]

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KPCB’s Mary Meeker is an analyst that makes the best use of PowerPoint of  anyone I’ve ever seen to explain what is happening in our media world.  Thanks to Business Insider’s Silicon Alley Insider Chart of the Day, the slide below tells an amazing – but illogical – story about media spending and where it’s […]

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The deteriorating relationship between radio and the music industry during the past several years has been a mystery to me.  We used to refer to it as symbiotic, but psychotic might be the better term. Seldom have there been two major entertainment entities that have needed each other more than radio and, well, records.  Yet, […]

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I’ve been to a number of these Convergence conferences put together by Eric Rhoads and the Radio Ink team.  From Deborah Parenti to Ed Ryan to Lois Chooljian, these events are always on-point, fresh, and seamless. This year was no different, and while I was only able to attend the first day, I kept wishing that […]

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Who’s the most local of them all?  And does local even matter? That’s a good question as many in radio rapidly move to a more syndicated model, featuring national entertainment and information.  The rationale, of course, is that great entertainment works whether it comes from your hometown, Hollywood, or New York City. And while that’s […]

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We have two dogs – a Cavalier King Charles spaniel who is fun and frisky, and a big brown bear-like mutt that we refer to us as our “rescue dog.”  Koko was found tied up outside one of the local humane societies, and she instantly became a fixture in our home. I wish there was a way […]

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“Slow down, you move too fast.” – Paul Simon from “The 59th St. Bridge Song” We are all doing too much, too many things, and way too fast for our own good.  As studies are now beginning to tell us (as we read them on our iPads while we’re texting on our phones and watching […]

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This post has taken a circuitous route. It started with a tweet from social media guy C.C. Chapman with a link to an Inc.com article, “6 Habits of Truly Memorable People.” I read it, enjoyed it, and retweeted it. A couple days later, the always charming Angela Perelli retweeted my little message, indicating her high […]

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The RAB recently told us something that just about everyone already knows – the up arrows for revenue generation for radio are in digital dollars.  Now to make sure you didn’t miss it, I have literally framed it up for you: Now I know there have been other big stories this week that may have captured your […]

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In radio, we are beginning to see more stations and personalities “get” the power of visuals.  The popularity of channels like Instagram and Pinterest, along with the changing nature of Facebook through “Timeline” is cementing this idea. For radio people, however, this is something of a leap.  That’s largely because most of us were brought up […]

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Please take the time to remember those who have served and those who continue to serve our country.  Wishing everyone a safe weekend.  We will be back on Tuesday with a new post.

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I was being interviewed the other day about what else?  Best practices in social media for radio. And the question revolved around an old theme – ROI.  It seems that in these times of rapidly depleting resources – human and financial – the same questions continue to be asked about whether social media has definable, […]

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So a couple of weeks ago, I gave a well-deserved shout-out to my alma mater, Michigan State University. This week, it’s my “other alma mater,” the University of Michigan, where I received a Bachelor’s of General Studies degree back in the early ‘70s.  (You can look it up, Yahoo board – it’s a fact.) It […]

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OK, so the IPO got off to a rocky start, but the Facebook viability debate rages on.  A recent feature on NPR’s cool Planet Money series, “For $75, This Guy Will Sell You 1,000 Facebook ‘Likes’” typifies the challenge that Internet mega-players like Facebook have in their efforts to portray themselves as a credible advertising vehicles. One […]

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Sometimes I am guilty of thinking about actors as the roles they became famous for.  It was hard not to think Archie Bunker when Carroll O’Conner showed up on screen.  Same with Jim Nabors on Gomer Pyle, Michael Richards as Kramer, or James Gandolfini who simply was Tony Soprano. And for Ashton Kutcher, I suppose I’ll always […]

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You couldn’t have missed the big announcement from General Motors the other day that it plans to stop advertising on Facebook.  The timing was especially interesting with Facebook’s IPO around the corner, and many advertisers currently debating the effectiveness of the social network on its marketing efforts. The announcement was a déjà vu for me, […]

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For some reasons, hoodies are in the news.  The Trayvon Martin case put hoodies in the spotlight, causing Geraldo Rivera to make a major faux pas about the symbolism of the hoodie as he urged parents not to let their kids wear them.  (He since apologized and retracted the statement.) And last week, Wall Street […]

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When we designed and conducted the “Goin’ Mobile” ethnographic study with Arbitron back in 2010, we saw some amazing “stupid human smartphone tricks” that were precursors to major behavioral changes that have become societal in scope. While speaking with a friend the other day who has an iPad but is still using a flip phone, […]

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During the past 12 months, I’ve joined Lori Lewis on a new kind of world tour, visiting radio stations, clusters, and companies – helping them unravel their digital mysteries.  We’ve had some frank conversations about social strategies, and we’ve led numerous brainstorm and staff sessions in an effort to bring clarity to station efforts. We […]

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