Yammer offers instant messaging focused on internal corporate communications, and is the result of work by engineers at Geni. Geni is the online, Web 2.0-style genealogy and social networking web site headed up by former PayPal founder David Sacks; the firm is venture backed by Charles River Ventures and Founders Fund. Yammer, a Twitter-like spinout out of high profile Los Angeles genealogy firm Geni.com, has scored the top prize at the TechCrunch50 awards in San Francisco. READ MOR

Sacks said that Geni, which spun out Yammer, remains in West Hollywood. Sacks revealed the move at the Twiistup conference Friday, explained the move by saying that "what I miss are all the technology companies are out of there, and I miss tapping the brain trust up there." The firm was spun out in September 2008 from Geni, and is backed by Charles River Ventures and the Founders Fund. West Hollywood-based Yammer , the corporate microblogging site inspired by Twitter, is moving from the Los Angeles area to Silicon Valley, according to founder David Sacks. According to

Southern California's top startups showed up in force Friday at the Westin South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, for the Technology Council of Southern California's annual VentureNet conference. (socalTECH socalTECH was a media sponsor of the conference). The conference, held at the Westin South Coast Plaza in Costa Mesa, featured pitches by eight different companies vying for the The day started with a keynote by John Suh of Legalzoom.com, and topped off with a pitch from David Sacks -- CEO of Geni.com, and also CEO of Geni spinoff Yammer.com, which recently won the top prize at the TechCrunch50-- plus a question and answer session which had Matt Coffin, founder of LowerMyBills, grilling Internet technology celebrity Jason Calacanis. The

and David Sacks of Geni/Yammer , who were saying “maybe/no”. In any case, whether you want to argue the merits of either argument, I’d agree with what venture investor Brad Feld said earlier in the conference: Get over it . The most amusing line of the conference: Jason Nazar of Docstoc, asking “Couldn’t anyone find a local investor to put on this panel?” Last week, one of those never-ending topics of discussion came up at Twiistup on a panel about whether or not Southern California was a good place to put your startup. On one side,

Out is the “cocktail only” Twiistup and in is the new format of a conference that should take its rightful place on the national technology calendar.  Twiistup 6 featured 12 showoff companies as the opening act of a 2-day conference.  After this was my panel (co-hosted by Christian Gammill who had to leave mid-way to race off to Hawaii to get engaged and by Tony Adam), with Mike Jones (COO of MySpace), ExpenseBay Wins Showoff Twiistup 6 has come to an end.