Funny the pace plans can change at, isn’t it? I was all organized and looking forward to formally announce my return to the world of independent consulting when things started to take an even more interesting turn instead.

I am in fact very happy to announce that I have now officially joined the ranks of the Praized Media team.

Praized Media is a startup company working on a web-based application that will enable you to find and discover local places and merchants with help from people you can trust. It’s also a tool that will structure local conversations within blogs and a new platform for local search providers to generate leads from the untapped social media market.

I’ve been following Praized since mid-2007, when they really started to show up on my radar as a serious[ly fun] and innovative venture, oozing with potential, and backed by a winning trio of entrepreneurs: Sebastien Provencher, Sylvain Carle and Harry Wakefield. A fact which was only reinforced when Garage Technology Ventures decided to fund the company last September.

I’ve been given the opportunity to increasingly involve myself in the company as a consultant since last December. The way things were evolving, I could not longer deny the clear fact that this is a project I want to be an integral part of. Something I can unequivocally see myself focusing on, even providing segues into some of involvements in the web and open source communities.

Luckily for me, the feeling seemed to be mutual and today marked my first day on staff. Suffice to say, I’m sporting a mile long smile about it all.

Praized is currently in stealth-mode, so although I can’t say much more, I can definitely hint that great things are coming! And with the people already on board, I’m in for a fun ride, striving to keep up with and help them in their efforts.

Thanks for the opportunity, team! But shame on you though. Now I’ll have to can that site I worked on for my consulting biz’… ;-p