John Battelle is an entrepreneur, journalist, professor, and author. Currently founder and chairman of Federated Media Publishing, Battelle is also a founder and executive producer of conferences in the media, technology, communications, and entertainment industries and "band manager" with BoingBoing.net. Previously, Battelle was founder, chairman, and CEO of Standard Media International (SMI), publisher of The Industry Standard and TheStandard.com. Prior to founding The Standard, Battelle was a co-founding editor of Wired magazine and Wired Ventures. He is the author of "The Search: How Google and Its Rivals Rewrote the Rules of Business and Transformed Our Culture" (Portfolio, 2005).

John De Vitis is a product unit manager for MSN® Search, which is part of the MSN core business unit at Microsoft Corp. He leads a product unit responsible for building the next wave of local search that will help consumers find and discover businesses and services in their community through new and innovative technologies. His previous role was director of technology, where he was responsible for leading all aspects of product development and service operations for MSNBC.com. Before this, De Vitis worked with Microsoft in various capacities on MSN House & Home, MSN Autos and Product Support Services IT Groups. His tenure at Microsoft has spanned more than nine years. De Vitis graduated with a bachelor’s degree in business administration from the University of Washington.

Craig Donato is the founder and CEO of Oodle, a consumer internet company whose mission is to provide online tools that make it easier to buy, sell, and give locally. Found online at www.oodle.com, Oodle is currently available in several markets, including Philadelphia, Miami, Chicago, and Dallas, among others.

Prior to Oodle, Donato was CEO of Grand Central Communications, which provides an internet service for business-to-business integration. Before joining Grand Central, Donato was a senior vice president at Excite@Home where he oversaw the Excite Search and Community business units and managed Network Programming. Donato holds an M.B.A. from Stanford Graduate School of Business and a B.S. in Electrical Engineering from Virginia Tech.

Perry Evans is the founding CEO of Local Matters Inc., a company recently formed through the merging of three leaders in Local Search. Aptas Inc, the company spearheading the merger, was founded by Evans in late 2001. In 2000, Evans co-founded Jabber, Inc., which he led as Chairman until 2003. Prior to this position, he was the president and CEO of Webb Interactive. Evans founded netIgnite in 1998, later acquired by Webb in 1999. In the early Internet days, Evans was founder and president of the MapQuest Publishing Group, where he created one of the Web's most prominent consumer brands and widely licensed business services. Prior to MapQuest, Evans managed the new media development group within RR Donnelley that was responsible for interactive yellow pages, travel and real estate products. Evans earned a M.B.A. from York University in Toronto, Canada.

John Frank founded MetaCarta in 1999 while beginning work on his Ph.D. in physics as a Hertz Fellow at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. While studying the microclimates of forests, Frank encountered a need for a new way to view collections of documents: geographically. Frank's vision and leadership have carried MetaCarta to its current position as the pioneer of geographic text search. At MetaCarta, he focuses on new technology explorations and partnerships. He speaks to technical audiences and advises on implementation strategies.

Frank holds a B.S. in physics with distinction from Yale University where he led Yale's first solar car team to the top rookie seat of Sunyrace 97. In addition to his role as CTO at MetaCarta, Frank is continuing his graduate studies in condensed matter theory at MIT.

Jeremy Kreitler joined Yahoo! in 2002 as a product manager for Yahoo! Local & Maps. Bringing nine years of online local product development experience to Yahoo!, Kreitler is responsible for Yahoo!'s product strategy in maps, local community, and mobile access.

Prior to joining Yahoo!, Kreitler held product management positions at MapQuest/AOL, eCollege, BellSouth Intelliventures, BellSouth.net, and Turner Broadcasting where he helped drive product strategy and was responsible for managing the day-to-day business for multiple product lines. Kreitler holds a Bachelor of Arts in cultural anthropology and psychology from Emory University.

Shailesh Rao is responsible for Local Search, 3rd Party and Content Partnerships for Google. His responsibilities include continuing to build Google's Local Search business globally, driving Google's 3rd party channel programs, as well as managing new content partnership programs on a worldwide basis.

Prior to Google, Shailesh was VP of Products for Yodlee, where he also served as Director of Business Development. He has also been a consultant with Mercer Management Consulting and in the business development group at America Online.

Shailesh has a BA from the University of Pennsylvania with Honors, a BS from the Wharton School with a concentration in finance, and an MBA from The Kellogg School of Management.

Resources:

• Where 2.0
• John Battelle's Searchblog
• Oodle
• Local Matters
• MetaCarta
• Yahoo! Local and Maps
• Google Local