There is clear dissatisfaction with the current state of marketing among the social media mavens.

• Fred Wilson and Union Square Ventures are looking for companies to invest in to take advantage of this.
• BuzzLogic releases their conversational ad service.
• The Inquisitr moves from AdSense to Technorati Media, indicating a potential shift at b5 Media.
• Lookery is providing demographic information that is relevant to social media providers and shaping ad presentation that way
• A completely off-the-radar person such as myself realizes that there is gold in what holds the attention, and that’s not always the latest and greatest

So what can be done? Jeff Jarvis points out that the problem lies with measurement. I agree, as there is only value in a system where all of the people involved agree on what the metric of record will be, and how it can be validly captured.

Currently CPM is the agreed upon metric. In a feed based online world, how does a CPM model work? And, most importantly, why would I continue to place your ads on my site if all your doing is advertising to people based on the words on the page, rather than who is looking at the page and how often that page is looked at.

In effect, advertisers should be the ones thrying to figure out how to get into the community, get into the conversation. As an advertiser, don’t you want to be where the action is? But how do you find an engaged audience in an online world that makes a sand castle on the beach in a hurricane look stable?

The challenge for advertisers is to be able to find the active communities and conversations effectively. The challenge for content creators and communities is to understand the value of their conversations, the interactions that people who visit the site have with the content.

In effect, a social media advertising model turns the current model on its head. Site owners and community creators gain the benefit of being attractive to advertisers because of the community, not because of the content. And site owners who understand who visits their site, what content most engages them, how they interact with the system will be able to reap the greatest rewards by selling their community as a marketable entity.

And Steven Hodson rounds out the week’s think on communities by throwing out the subversive idea that communities are not always free (as in ‘beer’, not as in ‘land of’). If a community has paid for the privilege of coming together to participate in communal events and discussions, then can’t that become an area for site owners to further control the cost of advertising on their site?

While the benefit of reduced or no marketing content is the benefit of many for-pay communities, this benefit can be used by site owners by saying that an advertiser can have access to the for-pay community at the cost of higher ad rates and smaller ads. The free community is a completely different set of rules, but there are also areas in the free community that are of higher value than others.

In summary, the current model is broken. But there is no way to measure the value of a Twitter stream, a FriendFeed conversation, a Disqus thread, or a Digg rampage. And until there is, we are stuck with an ad model that based on the words on the page, and not the community that created the words.

In April 2007, I tried out the Joost desktop client.  [More on Joost here and here]

I was underwhlemed by the performance, and the fact that the application completely maxxed out my dual core CPU, my 2G of RAM, and my high-speed home broadband. I do remember thinking at the time that it seemed weird to have a Desktop Client in the first place. Well, as Om Malik reports this morning, it seems that I was not alone.

After this week’s hoopla over Chrome, moving in the direction of the browser seems like a wise thing to do. But I definitely hear far more buzz over Hulu than I do for Joost on the intertubes.

Update

Michael Arrington and TechCrunch weigh into the discussion.

Or should I say, welcome back.

Three years ago when I started blogging on a regular basis, the blog was name The Newest Industry after the Husker Du song of the same name. Then I migrated the content to Wordpress.com, and relinquished hosting it myself.

Well, I have decided to resurrect Newest Industry, but with all the same shiny content you would find at the Crazy Canuck Chronicles.

So, if it’s been a while, welcome back. Otherwise, a simple hello.

My grandmother died a few months back, and while this was indeed a very sad day for all of us, she left on her own terms, and with her mind intact, facing the next adventure with grace and dignity.

What this sad event did is provide a focus for the entire Pierzchala clan to reconvene for the first time in more than a decade. Tomorrow, we will going to the ancestral heartland in the Crowsnest Pass to spread her ashes, and celebrate her life.

I am staying at my Aunt Heather’s home, someone I haven’t seen or spoken to in years. And tomorrow, I will see my aunts, uncles, cousins, second cousins, etc. and feel a part of the family that I had left behind.

I am sad that I couldn’t bring the rest of my family with me, to feel a part of this larger family, and understand just how many people they are related to, this is very important to me.

These are my people. My clan. My tribe.

And it is good to be among them again.

Through 2007, the number of posts I made per day/week/month decreased steadily. I know post new items 2-3 items a month, or less. After 2 years of steady entries, I just didn’t have anything to add to the conversation.

Having been an A-list groupie for this entire period, I lost touch with the self-perpetuating scene. A comment that I saw on Top Gear summed it up: Jeremy Clarkson had another chat show host on, and they both commented on how all British chat show hosts end up appearing on each others shows.

That’s how blogging began to feel to me. I began to step back.

I stepped back from true, active day-to-day management of GrabPERF.

I drifted, intellectually and emotionally.

I found the sharp edge of my humor, which had wandered off and gone hitchhiking through the British Isles disguised as Roger Daltrey for six months.

The last few weeks I have been asking myself if I want to go back to blogging, if I want to continue to produce the random ideas for the world to see.

The death of my grandmother a few weeks ago brought my world back into sharp focus. Who is going to see these stories, these tales? Who will be the keeper of my intellectual flame? What will people know of me when I fade away.

I will be trying to storm back. My brain is here.

I AM THOR, GOD OF THUNDER.

Ok…maybe that was delusional. But hang on for another wild ride.

On Friday morning, my brother called to tell me that Grandma Isa had passed away overnight.

Isa was my father’s mother, and was one of the most amazing people in my life. In her life, she had survived poverty that few of us can imagine, seen 5 children die in infancy while raising 5 of the most different and unique people I know, survived the unexpected death of her husband, and the slow death of her eldest surviving child (my father).

She was always there. She always had something to say. And she was there to tell you anything you wanted to know about the family.

I miss you Grandma.

You hear a song off Bob Mould’s album Workbook used in a TIAA-CREF commercial.

I think I’ll just nip off and shoot myself.

Most days, I look inside. And that’s part of the problem I suppose. That’s why I haven’t posted in so long: there has been no inspiration to stand and shout about anything.

I suppose that’s why I have been so viciously depressed these last few weeks. There has been nothing to write of. My life has been void.

Have I missed anything while I was away?

Many, many years ago, I started my depressing voyage through the world of work at an Overwaitea food store in my home town. As a teenager, I expected to work so weird hours, and accept some level of abuse from the “adults” I worked with.

However, it seems that the organization now expects all their employees to accept this crap [here].

A major B.C. grocery chain wants some of its unionized staff to work shifts of just two hours, a move the union representing 8,500 workers called shocking.

The Overwaitea Food Group, which also runs Save-On-Foods and Urban Fare, made the demand for two-hour shifts as it began negotiating a new contract with the United Food and Commercial Workers Union, the union said.

I don’t often (ever) talk about my musical taste. It is unremarkable for the most part, with flights into madness and impulsiveness.

Lately, I have discovered Icelandic music. Mainly Sigur Ros, Mum, Apparat Organ Quartet, Aniima, and (of course) Bjork. Apparently Icelandic music is all the rage, with people trying to understand how such a small country can produce such a wide range of artists.

These artists provide a soothing background to my jangled, often confused, mental state. I played it as I slept while I was on my latest trip, and while I was on the plane returning from Chicago.

However, my deep feelings and desire to visit Iceland has its roots back in my very early teens. A Hardy Boys mystery and a Clive Cussler novel brought it to my attention. It’s a nation of extremes, of wonder, isolation, and survival.

It is among one of the few places I feel I have to visit at least once in my life. I cannot explain this desire. Perhaps it is the latent Viking in me.

But the music draws me as much as the place does.