Danny Sullivan's Search Engine Land will debut a half-day conference format, SphinnCon, in Jerusalem, Israel on February 5th.

There's no need to fret about travel plans to SMX West, the big event Sullivan's group will host in Santa Clara later in February. The SMX series will be moving full steam ahead as it has been.

However, the serendipity of Barry Schwartz's upcoming trip to Israel offered an opportunity for Sullivan to try out something completely different. SphinnCon debuts in Jerusalem in early February.

Unlike the larger, two or three day conferences under the SMX brand, SphinnCon, named for the Sphinn social media site operated by Sullivan, will be much more compact. The noon to 6 pm event will admit 150 people at $50 per person.

Three sessions, on paid links, the PPC model, and social media, will take place, sandwiched by some networking time.

When we chatted by phone with Schwartz, he said once the idea of SphinnCon took form, organizing the Jerusalem event took about a month. He credited local SEO businesses there for helping get the ball rolling.

This should lead to a full fledged SMX conference in Israel, as Schwartz plans to work on developing it over the course of 2008. As for other SphinnCons, where they might land next will be up to the members of Sphinn to choose.

A message thread on Sphinn announcing SphinnCon has been filling up with suggestion of places to have the next ones. Votes for cities around the US, as well as Toronto, Brisbane, Amsterdam, and other international sites have been mentioned.