Tomorrow I fly to spend a week in Australia talking social media with a bunch of local companies.

I can’t wait - its been a long while since I’ve been down under, where in a misspent youth I spent a few months picking fruit and hitch-hiking goggle-eyed through its huge expanses of open space. Email had yet to go anywhere near mainstream and the web didn’t exist so the only way to contact home was via cheap, dog-eared postcards or short, expensive phone calls, preferably of the collect variety.

Clearly, much has changed on the communications front, though not as much as web 2.0-ers might wish. A debate on why blogging has failed to ignite in Australia is swirling, with the finger pointed at everything from the lack of a nationwide high speed broadband network and a risk-averse business culture to an outdoors lifestyle.

On the surface, few organisations appear to be using social media. (An exception is local telecoms company Telstra, which has been deloying blogs and other social media in a very public grassroots-oriented campaign aimed at building support for its plans to lay down those much needed fibre-optics.)

But all is not gloom. As in many countries, social networks are driving traffic, with Facebook surging (even if MySpace and Bebo are static) and according to the 2007 Future of Media Report (pdf), Australian YouTube usage increased some 239% in the year to May 2007.

Like elsewhere in Asia, companies seem to be grappling with questions like where to start and how to measure success. It’s going to be fascinating finding out more about their issues and concerns in their own backyard.