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.