McWhorter in 24/7

Stuart McWhorter has personally invested in 24/7 Sports, a Brentwood pro-college sports site that will certainly rival Rivals.com, the competitor created and later sold to Yahoo! by Shannon Terry. Our bit is here.

HealthStream-Laerdal content development

More details this morning on the earlier-announced co-marketing and -development collaboration by HealthStream, the e-learning and research company; and, publisher Laerdal Medical. They're allowing developers to collaborate through a tool called SimDeveloper, with goods sold through SimStore. No word yet on who owns what. Initial collaborators include "National League for Nursing, American Academy of Pediatrics, Belmont University and Health Care Simulation South Carolina (USA); Oxford Brookes University and SAFER Simulation Center (Europe); and Edith Cowan University (Australia)," among others. The joint release is here.

Dobie makes best of missing Tennessean job

We're not sure it was ever confirmed, but it's widely believed that Bruce Dobie, of whom we write in today's story about a B-round cap raise for Dobie Media, may've benefited by the door closing at The Tennessean a few years ago, when he was rumored to have been considered a finalist for the editorship at The TSN, after he and his partner sold Nashville Scene. Here's our story on the capital raise and background on Dobie.

Vic Gatto keeps learning

It's speakers' responses to audience questions that often catch our attention: As when during the recent NTC capital forum Solidus VC Vic Gatto answered a question from Brainwave entrepreneur Rob Solberg. Gatto revealed he's been studying online games and the intersection of mobile and social, and finds it an "exciting space," particularly if there's a new platform emerging. Read about the forum here.

Tradingo.com booms in Knoxville

You never know what'll do it: In this case, Knoxville-based web-trading and -auction site Tradingo.com, latched onto debris from a demolished Buffalo Memorial Stadium, and apparently Sabres hockey fans are legion, because business is suddenly booming. The KNS reports today. An earlier MetroPulse piece. Tradingo.com COO Scott Scheinbaum, 39, (at left, in MeroPulse pic) told VNC this afternoon that he's a former staff member at failed startup Idleaire, but has worked with a number of ventures in Silicon Valley and elsewhere. A Chicago native himself, but the son of a Knoxville native, he got his undergrad in Music and Computer Science at UT-Knoxville in 1983. Tradingo.com's CEO is Thomas 'TJ' McNamara, whose dayjob is that of an SVP with DemCo Power Services Group, which builds and demolishes facilities. McNamara works from Knoxville, but DemCo is based in upstate NY. Tradingo.com is a Delaware corp.

TN website voted best

The State of Tennessee's governmental website, maintained by Olath, Kan.-based NIC Inc. (NASDAQ:EGOV), has been voted best by affiliates of the National Conference of State Legislatures, who presented state officials the NCSL Online Democracy Award.

InvestTennessee site up

That InvestTennessee.org site that was touted during the Governor's annual economic-development conference a couple weeks ago is now live. Nice cache of resources.

NV 'Profit Engineer' wows 'em

Nashville 'profit engineer' and social-media expert, David Bullock (left) of White Bullock Group, wowed 'em in Memphis with his presentation about online marketing. The CA reports.

State social-media push

Tennessee's tourism officials have been pushing their messages via social media, and Kate Gallagher blogged about the results of the state's recent survey of its audience regarding what consumers would like to see the State tweeting, Facebooking, etc. Here's Kate's post.

Paramore reveals all

Hannah Paramore (left), the entrepreneur who founded Paramore|Redd online marketing, will address the Nashville Chapter of the American Marketing Association, Oct. 7. Details here.

20|20 Research tech upgrade

2020 Research, based in Green Hills, announced the upgrade of its QualBoard(TM) software for online polling and interactive research. The release is here.

Braggin' rights: Qualifacts, Digome

Back in October, we reported on Roe Frazer's new Digome LLC sports and entertainment startup. Roe wrote this weekend that since then they've done work for Titans defensive end Kyle Van Den Bosch, and Kentucky coach John Calipari... We also recently reported on Qualifacts' alliance with a North Carolina firm, to push for e-health consortia. Now comes a Qualifacts release noting that, among other feats, in 1HCY09 the company signed 14 new contracts in eight states. Qualifacts also says it's making strong progress signing providers in Georgia, a recently added territory.

SaaS: Songs as a Service?

Release out today from Lifeway says, "On Monday, February 9, LifeWay Worship will unveil the latest innovation in digital music: SongMap™, a web-based application that allows users to create custom arrangements of songs and produce corresponding audio files and sheet music. SongMap™ was developed through the largest known recording project in Nashville history. Nearly 1,000 songs and 8,000 mixes were recorded in just 10 months by over 150 professional musicians, vocalists and engineers." Read more here. [Update: Feb. 6, AP in KNS.]

WSM Redux Online

Nashville's 83-year-old WSM Radio, no longer worried about becoming an automaton of Cumulus Media, is pleased to be running its own show, again, albeit within Gaylord Entertainment. In NBJ, Jeanne Naujeck reports that GM Chris Kulick says the station -- saved by listeners from reformatting in 2001 -- has a new lease on life, via the Web. WSMOnline shows new programming consistent with WSM's roots. The NBJ story's here. WSM was named "Legendary Station" in the NAB's 2008 Marconi Awards.

Plum jobs

There's another hole in the venture ozone, this morning, with Plumgood Foods' purple trucks unlikely to be spotted anywhere. The company, as far as we can tell, ceased all operations yesterday, putting another nail in the online grocery biz coffin. But, CEO and Co-Founder Eric Satz seems likely to seek another gig. Read the story here.