I just returned from O’Reilly Media’s Graphing Social Patterns (GSP) conference in San Diego.  As the name implies, GSP focuses on the business and technology of social networking platforms (Facebook, LinkedIn, MySpace, Bebo, etc).  Like many new segment conferences, the focus was heavy on the technology and lite on the business.

Wonder what social networking will be like in the future? It will ‘be like air and you won’t be able to breathe without it.’ That’s a direct quote from Charlene Li at Forrester.  If you want to read more about ‘social air,’ she has a book called Groundswell coming out soon. Note: I preordered, it was not ‘free’ like ‘air.’

All that said, social is here to stay and many believe that all computing will be social in the coming years.  Lots of talk about ‘personal data’ portability (making your personal information cross platform) and the dirty ‘M’ word … Monetization.  With regard to the M, most companies developing apps and social business seem to be ignoring it for now, some acknowledge the problem but no one has figured it out. 

As side note, Yellow Pages Group of Canada, a Call Genie customer, has a Facebook link for all of its iYP business listings.  Nice job to YPG for giving Social an early handshake!  

I spent Wednesday and Thursday at the Pelorus Mobile Local Search Forum in Albuquerque.  This was PG’s first MoLo conference and there were over 80 people in attendance.  I think the presentations were first rate and the only complaints I heard were about the adventures in getting to Albuquerque. Call Genie’s Garry Galinsky spoke about the voice aspects of local search and it was fantastic to see so many Call Genie customers there, including Cellwand, Idearc, RHD, Verizon and Yellowpages.com.

Google annouced that it has seen 50 X more search requests coming from Apple iPhones than any other mobile handset — a revelation so astonishing that the company originally suspected it had made an error culling its own data.  “We thought it was a mistake and made our engineers check the logs again,” Vic Gundotra, head of Google’s mobile operations told the Financial Times during this week’s Mobile World Congress in Barcelona.Beyond the reality of the results, what a great PR headline to capture everyones attention.  Nice PR job, Google!

Last week, Call Genie officially moved from the TSX.V to the TSX. This move is expected to increase call Genie’s overall profile as well as expose the company to a wider range of investors. As part of this process, we had the opportunity to officially ring the bell at the opening of the Toronto Stock Exchange this morning. Here is a picture of the management team at the opening ceremony.

The terms of this transaction are pretty well covered in our Press Release but it’s probably worth a few more comments. 

Most companies face the same strategic options when they are in expansion mode: build, buy or partner.   If its tactical, partnerships are great but if its strategic, its build or buy all the way.

PhoneSpots extends our ‘voice-only’ capabilities to include a full, ‘multi-modal’ mobile content delivery solution. In addition, PhoneSpots mobile advertising capabilities are a logical extension of our core voice advertising and placement capabilities.  We were thrilled to reach agreement on a deal that gives us (even more) great people and complementary technology as well as a stable of marquee customers and partners.  At the close of the transaction, we will have over 150 employees and 26 + customers in North America, Europe and other parts of the world. We are excited to welcome Tom and the PhoneSpots team into the Call Genie family! 

Borrell Associates just released its 2008 forecast for the local online advertising market.  Borrell expects the overall market will reach $12.6 billion, of which, local search will account for $5 billion (up from $2.5 billion in 2007). In addition, the Borrell forecast predicts that local online video will increase from $400 million to $1.3 billion by the end of 2008. 

More information on the report is available at Search Engine Land and a download of the Executive Summary is available on the Borrell web site.

I had the opportunity to spend last week at the Kelsey ILM conference in Los Angles. As always, the Kelsey Group delivered a who’s who list of speakers (and attendees) from RHD, Facebook, AT&T, TMP, Myspace, Microsoft, and of course, Google.What struck most about this year’s ILM conference was the dynamic that occurs when you mix the core Kelsey people with the infusion of the SES crowd. It’s hard to capture the dynamic but I can best summarize it as ‘highly energetic.’Without calling attention to specific speakers or topics, the key themes I heard were:

1) The local search market is a huge with no clear winner … as a result, there is a significant opportunity to make money

2) Mobile is a critical component of any local search strategy

3) Meaningful metrics and measurable PFP will become the minimum threshold.

As I look back on other events that I have attended over the last 12 months (and I have pretty much hit them all), it really feels like local search is starting to move from ‘what are we going to do?’ to ‘here is what we are doing.’ This level of transition makes for great panel sessions and even more lively discussions at the networking events.I think next year will be all about what is working and what isn’t….Lots of other great event coverage at the Kelsey Blog.