July 17th, 2009 - San Francisco

Annoucing the Local Search Summit

Isn’t it time you started taking local search seriously? Are your competitors still getting better rankings than you? Are your clients demanding a more thought out strategy to capitalize on the growing and powerful local search market?

Calacanis LLC and Steve Espinosa are proud to announce their collaboration on the new, premier conference on local search, Local Search Summit (LSS). The summit will feature keynotes and discussions from some of the top leaders in the local search arena (including Atif Rafiq, Steve Stukenborg, Jason Calacanis, Steve Espinosa and Greg Sterling) discussing almost everything you need to know to take advantage of local search.

The agenda for LSS includes: how to solve the problem of synergy between online and offline media; how to make sure your site gets ranked; the essential products for SMB’s, how to drive local leads using social media; and much more! The full agenda is available online at http://localsearchsummit.com/agenda.html.

Local Search Summit takes place July 17th at the JW Marriot in San Francisco. Passes to the conference are available now for $495 by visiting http://local.eventbrite.com. There are a very limited number of passes available, so hurry and get yours now!

Speakers at the event include:

· Atif Rafiq, General Manager of Yahoo! Local

Atif Rafiq has over twelve years experience in the web, new media and software in a variety of general management, strategy and business development roles. Atif currently manages the local and maps business lines at Yahoo!, which are part of the search division. Prior to joining Yahoo!, Atif was founder and CEO of Covigna, a venture-backed provider of content management software. Atif began his career in the web in 1996 as a key member of the business development and strategy team at AOL.

· Steve Stukenborg, Product Manager, Google TV

Steve Stukenborg is a Senior Product Manager at Google, responsible for the emerging Google TV product. Under his supervision, Google TV has had remarkable success recruiting both local and national advertisers. Prior to joining Google, he was the Director of Product Marketing at Electric Cloud and Director of Product Marketing at MS2. He holds a BS in Computer Science from Purdue, a Master’s from the University of Wisconsin and an MBA from the University of Chicago

· Steve Espinosa, Editor of Local Search News

Steve Espinosa is currently editor of Local Search News and VP of Innovation at eLocal Listing. Steve Espinosa is a leading local search expert and frequent speaker at conferences such as SMX, SES, and Kelsey Groups conferences. He was founder of online startup Buzzspot, an online local tv advertising startup which was acquired by Search Initiatives in 2008. Currently as VP of Innovation at eLocal Listings, he is responsible for creating local search marketing products that service top national brands and over 10,000 small businesses.

· Jason Calacanis, CEO and Founder of Mahalo

Jason is the founder and CEO of Mahalo.com, a human-powered search engine. In 2007, Jason partnered with Michael Arrington of TechCrunch to launch the TechCrunch40 conference, showcasing 40 of the world’s most promising startups on stage before an audience of Silicon Valley’s finest. Before starting Mahalo, Jason co-founded and was the CEO of Weblogs, Inc., a network of popular weblogs that was sold to AOL in November 2005. Jason’s first startup was as the founder of Rising Tide Studios, which sold its flagship publication, Silicon Alley Reporter, to Dow Jones.

· Greg Sterling, Sterling Marketing Intelligence

Greg Sterling is the founding principal of Sterling Market Intelligence (SMI), a consulting and research firm focused on the Internet’s influence on offline consumer purchase behavior. He also is a Senior Analyst for Local Mobile Search, an advisory service from Opus Research tracking the evolution of the mobile Internet.

Before SMI, Sterling ran The Kelsey Group’s Interactive Local Media program. Prior to The Kelsey Group, Sterling was at TechTV where he helped produce “Working the Web,” a national television show on e-business and the Internet. Before that he was a founding editor and executive producer at AllBusiness.com.