Those who have read my blog for awhile know that we've got a really unique method of selling local ads planned once we launch Pegasus. Resource issues preclude us from turning it on yet, but once we're full strength, it involves offering pay-for-performance ads where we only get our piece if someone walks into a local store (or bar, or restaurant, or dry cleaner) and makes a purchase that we can track.

That idea came out of an article I read when the circulation scandals started breaking at major daily newspapers around the country -- in it, Ed Wasserman pointed out:

"Still, there is an absurdity to the whole scam. Counting copies is a dopey way to gauge impact. "

How better to gauge impact? Where possible, results.

Interestingly, as I peddled that idea, a lot of people told me that Google had all the answers with its pay-per-click advertising. I didn't buy that. Pay-per-click is a suckers' game for local publishers. If you see an ad for a restaurant special on our site, why do you need to click it? You go. You eat.

Apparently PPC is a suckers' game for others too: A new report says that 14.6% of all PPC revenue is a result of clickfraud.

To put that in perspective, that's more than triple the largest disparity found in the newspaper circ scandals.

There has to be a better mousetrap.