For the first time since we embarked on a pure Media 2.0 strategy for audience development at WKRN-TV in Nashville, aggregate traffic to the station’s 19 blogs last week exceeded traffic to the station’s primary Website, wkrn.com. This means the station has doubled its reach and created niche “businesses” in the market at the same time.

Two of the blogs are aggregators, and the rest are run by various departments (weather and sports), anchors, and niche (beat) VJs.

I’m very proud of Mike Sechrist, Steve Sabato and the whole gang at this progressive station, and as George Peppard used to tell The A-Team, “I love it when a plan comes together.”

UPDATE: Rex Hammock observes: “I guess it’s because people like me are always pointing their way because they know how to point this way, as well.”

Well said, Rex.

One of the most insightful voices in the media world today is that of Chris Anderson, author of The Long Tail and a blog by the same name. Anderson’s genius is in his understanding of economics in the new world, and the book is a must-read for anybody who wants to do business in Media 2.0.

In a presentation at Pop!Tech, Anderson spoke of what he calls the “Economy of Abundance,” which is what we find now that anybody can be a publisher or broadcaster. Our old models are all built on scarcity. Heck, advertising rates are built on scarcity, so talking about abundance is counterintuitive to Media 1.0.

Thankfully for all of us, Ethan Zuckerman was at the presentation and posted a delightful summary, including these four “business changes” that we all would do well to study:

• In the past, we built business cases based on ROI. Now we build it and build the business afterwards.
• In the past, “everything is forbidden unless it’s permitted.” Now everything is permitted unless forbidden.
• Scarcity is about paternalism, a decision that an editor knows what’s best. Abundance is about egalitarianism.
• Scarcity is top-down, abundance is bottom-up. Instead of command and control, it’s out of control.

The first business change is the one that fools most broadcasters (and all media companies), because our training and instincts demand that we have a profitable business plan in front of us before proceeding to do anything. This is a trap in the Media 2.0 world, because entrepreneurs in the space aren’t so bound. Consequently, they leapfrog companies who, for a very small investment, could be seizing the low-hanging fruit that these entrepreneurs are seeking. By the time they “build the business afterwards,” it’s too late to get into the game.

In my presentations, I often use a slide featuring a picture of George Costanza from Seinfeld and a quote of George’s from one of my favorite episodes, “The Opposite.” In it, George has decided that his whole miserable life was built on bad decisions, and that if he’d just do the opposite of what he thought was right, he’d end up better off than his current state. The show is filled with hilarious lines built on the premise, but none is more memorable than the one repeated in the slide. In the diner, Jerry, Elaine and Kramer convince George to try his new theory on a beautiful woman sitting at the counter. He does, and she shocks him by agreeing to a date.

For media companies, this “wisdom of the opposite” is more than a script in a sitcom; it’s a real-world challenge to all of us, and getting past it is what will free us to engage the real competition of the Media 2.0 world.

Nostalgia can be an evil seducer, for the past cannot be dragged forward, regardless of how hard we try. The past belongs where it is, and whether we glamorize it or run from it, its power is limited to that which we give it. The here. The now. These are what matters, and they are impossible to enjoy fully, if we hang onto that which used to be.

It has been a very long time since I went “home,” and as I drove around the old neighborhood, I wanted to enjoy the moment, but I felt I didn’t belong. The house in which I grew up appeared vacant, but I didn’t get out to look. Too many feelings. It is most definitely run down, but if somebody lives there, my guess is it doesn’t feel run down to them.

Everything on the old block felt crowded and cramped. The trees are enormous, and the field out back where we used to play is so overgrown that it’s hard to imagine the time long ago when we played baseball and football there with all the neighbor kids.

I got to spend precious moments with my mother, Miss Dorothy, and her cat, Missy Sue. Though I look like my father, it is my mother’s block from which I was chipped. She hasn’t a clue about the internet except for the woman downstairs who complains every time her computer belches. She doesn’t know about blogs, bittorrent, streaming video, social media, or any of the stuff of which I write, nor does she care. She smiles when I tell her what I do, but the smile is more a courtesy than anything else, and that’s okay.

But I was struck by the metaphor contained in that smile and all the way back to Dallas, I thought about how absolutely different our world is today from it was when I played in that field out back of our house. I thought about generations past and generations to come, and how I will one day likely smile that courteous smile rather than engage in that which belongs to the future.

For our lives belong to us, each with its beginning and its end. The past belongs where it is, with its good and with its bad, and the future belongs to that and those yet to come. Today is God’s gift to each of us, and my prayer for each of you today is that you not squander one moment thereof.

I’m in Grand Rapids for a long-overdue visit with my mother.

I haven’t been here in years, but there’s an odd familiarity with the people here, even though I don’t know a soul. Western Michigan is home to a lot of people with Dutch ancestry, so blonde hair is everywhere. And, brrr, it’s cold!

Mom lives in an apartment, but I’m going to drive by the old home place (now in what would best be described as a “bad” neighborhood). I’ll have some thoughts and a picture or two when I get back (if anybody cares).

Warner Music Group’s deal with Brightcove to put video on its music sites is yet another fragmentation in the video distribution marketplace that ought to make broadcasters sit up and take notice. According to an article in today’s Online Media Daily, Brightcove will handle ad sales in the deal.

The Web-based players will encompass music videos, artist interviews, live performances and “behind-the-scenes” material. Through the deal, Warner will also allow bloggers, social networking sites and other Web publishers to add its video on-demand service to their sites. Sites that syndicate the Warner video programming will be able to share in ad revenue.