Don't bother looking for Google under your bedsheets tonight. It's not there, yet. But it's positioned to be just about everywhere else. Google's latest maneuver in a well-honed strategy and ecosystem for seizing control of the digital world is its beta Chrome browser.

The objective in spinning off four chunks of InterActiveCorp into new publicly traded entities was to simplify and improve investor support for its encompassing 30-plus individual Web properties. Some of those properties would be fodder for mergers and acquisitions in better times--which presents a short-term challenge for Diller & Co.

Regardless of your political or technological persuasion, you have to concede this is a time of extraordinary, inexorable change that demands a new brand of leadership. This parallel political and technological transformation is being driven by a powerful force: the grassroots empowerment of people.

Even as stations learn and perfect new digital interactive techniques, the formula for success is simple. It's all about extensive hyper-local content. Above all, TV broadcasters must make their online platforms original, participatory, conversational and commercial. Bottoms-up enterprise is required.

Television stations are in the same quandary as housing and other industries whose core assets are undergoing excruciating revaluation due to tumultuous economic, technological and competitive change.

If an estimated 20 million-plus homes find themselves without local television station reception when analog switches to all digital early next year, they will be lost to broadcasters that can ill afford to lose more viewers or ratings points.

While the advent of digital multichannel 24-hour local news and sports sounds promising, such parallel programming efforts may not generate much money during a protracted economic slump. On a broader scale, it's all about establishing yourself as the authoritative source for quality detailed micro-local information on TV, the Web, cable, radio and mobile.

Local TV stations appear headed for the same restructuring and consolidation ravaging the banking, telecommunications and airline industries. Stations able to solidify themselves as the definitive sources of local news and advertising will thrive if they find new ways to translate that online.

Effective digital age branding of people, content products and services demands skilled consumer engagement, relevance, function, convenience, peer socializing and applied value--for just 30 seconds or as long as it lasts. It essentially means comprehending, bonding and relentlessly responding to your niche constituents.

Digital relief for traditional ad-supported media--especially local television and newspapers--may not come fast enough to avoid serious financial repercussions in 2009. Local TV's ability to generate revenues from interactive platforms is key to surviving economic travails.