Freezing cold in Paris, LeWeb08 a success after all (1)
Last week in Paris, the largest European web event was a wrap. As you may know, it is organized by the very public Loïc Le Meur and his wife Géraldine. Both now living in San Francisco but originally from France. Also, out of the 1600 attendees, only a few Montrealer’s made the trip. One investor, John Stokes from Montreal Start-Up, and three bloggers, Claude Malaison, Patricia Tessier and Caroline Allard were there.
Previous LeWeb events were great, in fact they were considered premium quality, in terms of content and organization. Unfortunately, the 2008 edition had a few hiccups.
I would like to quote a UK investor that was sitting with us at dinner on the first evening. Here’s the answer to my simple question about how she liked the event thus far, “Aside from the lack of heat, food, coffee and internet, this conference is excellent!”. The exact response anyone of the participants would have given. Unfortunately, the issues have been debated far more than the actual content, conferences or companies present and it has simply eclipsed everything else. (This post, as you can see, is no exception).
Although the now famous Guardian article written by Paul Carr and the picture of Scoble playing Solitaire are here to stay, most speakers were great. The second day was warmer and significantly better in terms of content. The recorded footage of the main stage is available on UStream.tv, including the ones with Chris Anderson, Merrisa Mayer and Marc Simoncini which are seriously worth watching.
As for the Startup Challenge, it was quite hectic. Issues varied from the lack of Internet connection (when they specifically asked the participants to prepare a live demonstration) to a very confusing winner announcement. At the end, Viewdle, Webnode and Zoover where the winners selected by the jury. And the People’s Choice Award went to Silentale! Read how Nicolas and I lived those two days and our views on the Competition.
On the day after the event, Loïc released a formal apology. Accepting the facts and going into details about what went wrong. After all, if we look over the organization issues, great speakers came from Europe and the US and made this event a success. I just hope we’ll have LeWeb09 next year.
Freezing cold in Paris, LeWeb08 a success after all http://tinyurl.com/5gflcq
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