Where2.0 registration early-bird pricing ends today (with an extra 10% off via whr09twt1 code now with 25% off goodness with whr09cm25 – or even higher discounts if you qualify under one of the other groups (students, academic, government)).

For me – the most compelling thing about Where2.0 this year is seeing the round-trip evolution of GeoHackers 3 years ago, to viable, growing businesses. It’s been widely recognized that the Where2.0 follow-on, WhereCamp, is where innovators and thinkers spend the weekend considering what the future of location technology is – but now it’s even becoming mainstream.

Steve Coast went from a crazy idea, to a global community, to a funded-global business and is talking about Ubiquitous GeoContext. Dennis Crowley has done it before and doing it again and discussing the social-locative ghosts of past and future. DC is being represented by Eric Gunderson, Tim “Chippy” Waters’ open-source map rectifier is being used in major libraries – and Chris Spurgeon, well, his talks are awesome and the perfect way to end the conference with Maps in Space. And there are even more that I believe will be announced soon.

Besides the evolution of Where2.0 – there is a cadre of immersive, submersive, subversive, pervasive, innovative, locative, mobile, design-principled, compelling.

And there may even be some cool locative games to join in on.

(disclosure: I am a member of the Where2.0 conference selection committee and as such obviously think everyone speaking is awesome and should be heard by as many people as possible.)

Jim Stogdill and I had a conversation a week ago about the new iPhone 2.2 firmware that includes walking directions as well as similar projects in the space. In my Where2.0 Report I talked about the convergence of mobile devices and the effect on multi-modal routing: your phone changing from auto to walking to metro directions based on your context. However, I didn’t go in-depth on example projects and services.

Jim posted my notes of our discussion on O’Reilly Radar. So check them out there. It’s just an overview, but let me know if I missed an interesting project or story about open-data (or lack of).

It’s been mentioned elsewhere – but wanted to remind you to work on your Where2.0 proposals over the US Thanksgiving Holiday. They are due on Monday.

Each year Where2.0 has demonstrated the migration of location technology from the bleeding edge and locative media art to mainstream businesses and practices. Yet we have just begun to realize the potential. Where2.0 is the conference to hear the newest announcements, learn from experts in the industry, and meet and collaborate on new projects and ventures.

I know people out there are doing amazing work on bringing advanced climate change analysis coupled with user-contributed data to pinpoint carbon emissions or the changing migratory paths of endangered species, repurposing outdated mobile phones for biological sensors, application of geospatial tools to community building, humanitarian and disaster response and citizen media, immersive, augmented reality through wearable and interactive devices – and of course the holy grail, how to realize a viable business plan amongst all this great potential.

Submitting a proposal is easy to do and speaking at Where2.0 is incredibly rewarding. You’ll find it difficult to find such an absorbed and forward thinking crowd to share your work with.

Tomorrow I’ll be giving a webcast presentation with O’Reilly: “Trends and Technologies in Where2.0″. It will be a short presentation – approximately 20 minutes – then with about 40 minutes for question and answer discussion.

So if you want to ask anything about new and upcoming GeoWeb technologies, communities using geospatial technology, or businesses that are growing in the various spaces of geodata, locative mobile, or even just cool hacks then definitely register!

My apologies to people in timezones that makes this occur on your Friday evening. Since it’s participate at home, you can enjoy it over a nice beverage or meal.

It’s a little difficult to keep up with everything while I’m traveling. Pleasantly I noticed in my inbox that an announcement from O’Reilly went out that included my name.

Brady Forrest and I collaborated on producing a business-oriented analysis of the phenomenal growth around geospatial technology. The report, Where2.0: The State of the Geospatial Web covers various aspects of providers and potential opportunities in a variety of domains that are affected by the emergence of many factors.

Some of these topics include: the impact of open and user-contributed geographic data on traditional data vendors and subsequent tools that rely on the availability, coverage, and quality of this data; highly-connected mobile devices, now often with developer available interfaces for location sharing and high-bandwidth internet connections; models for location-based advertising; and next generation applications such as games, augmented & immersive reality; as well as many more.

It was definitely interesting writing the report from a more practical and business perspective. My background has been in pushing and developing new technologies. I found it eminently useful to think of it from a reverse perspective on evaluating the percolating usefulness across markets and uses. It is valuable for both business development as well as application development to connect.

In addition to the discussion and analysis of the current state of the geospatial web, the report includes a fairly broad directory of companies, applications, and organizations in Where2.0 across the multiple domains. It also includes in-depth profiles of some of the major players.

The report is primarily for businesses that are interested in starting up, or entering, the geo- space and want to get a view of the landscape. It should also be useful for existing organizations that want to understand how the various technologies, acquisitions, and developments may affect their current market.

You can get a discount by using this link.

The report was originally written this Spring and originally announced at Where2.0. We’ve been continuously updating the report with new information such as the completion of the TeleAtlas/TomTom and NAVTEQ/Nokia mergers and the implications as well as the iPhone 3G with built-in GPS and Core Location API. The GeoWeb is a fast-moving space, so it’s definitely difficult to attempt to grasp for a quick snapshot. We hope to update it more in the future as Where2.0 evolves.