Le Web 3 Reviews
Overall Ratings
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The Reviews
Show reviews about the conference overall
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By: Mr Heiko Hebig
on Feb 21 2007 at 09:45 AM EST
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Les Blogs became Le Web 3
A review of the conference overall
Les Blogs started out as a "blogger conference" and many people still expected Le Web 3 to be just that. However, it was much more: It was MUCH bigger than the previous Les Blogs conferences, the auditorium was huge and the crowd was big, and there were surprise appearances by leading politicians. I had a great time. |
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By: Mr Conor O'Neill
on Dec 15 2006 at 07:39 AM EST 
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I signed up for a web conference not a rally
A review of the conference overall
Did my attendance fee pay for the security for Shimon Peres and the French presidential candidates? Was I at Le Web or Les Grands Buddies de Loic? Whilst the lack of functioning wifi was deeply annoying for attendees and was a PR disaster for Orange, it was completely unacceptable and frankly amateurish for them not to have dedicated bandwidth for the startup room. The inability of Web-based startups to show their products live at Le Web was laughable and the shrug-attitude of the organisers about this must have been horribly frustrating for those who put all that effort into their preparation. The people networking opportunities were excellent and I was thrilled to finally put some faces to names. Whilst the party was fun, the deafening noise made further networking almost impossible and we just relaxed for the night and had a good laugh. Sadly, I found most of the panels mind-numbingly boring with just groups of buddies sitting in their slippers with mugs of cocoa coming out with bland uncontroversial gap fillers. They really should have had someone like Canter as a moderator to shake them out of their stupor. I don’t believe I learned one new thing from any of them. I had really been looking forward to Dave Sifry from Technorati and when his presentation just consisted of his last state of the blogosphere post, I was desperately disappointed. He and most of the others lacked that critical ingredient of any compelling presentation - passion! I saw a spark from Dave when Tom Morris asked him about microformats and again when the ICQ guy challenged him about categorisation of blogs (a really bad idea). But that was it. For this reason, the highlight of the event was clearly Hans Rosling, Professor of International Health at the Karolinska Institutet. It was simply the most deeply interesting, informative, challenging and exciting presentation I have ever seen at a conference. On top of that, the data manipulation software he used to highlight his points was stunning in its ability to display large amounts of spatial and temporal data in a simple way. The treatment of both Snipperoo and Anthony Zanetti regarding the startup room was shameful and in particular I think Anthony is owed an apology for the complete lack of any response from the organisers and the deletion of his comment about this from the site. The trip cost us well over €1000 in total and I had thought long and hard about whether to go or not. The pre-coverage we received and the people we met made it worthwhile but I’ll be making damn sure Ryan is going to avoid all the mistakes of Le Web before I definitely head to FOWA. Maybe he could bring in John Prescott to dazzle us with his repartee? Loic’s chums delayed the event so much on Tuesday that I hung on too late to see some of the start-ups and missed my flight. Whilst the extra cost involved probably wouldn’t cover the cost of a bottle of Cristal for Sarkozy, it really hurts a self-funded startup like us. But then I can hardly ask for a refund, can I? The food was extremely good, the people friendly and the venue decent but I don’t think we’ll be seeing Le Web 4. If we do, it’ll be a French attendee only event. A little less time power-brokering and a little more time focusing on the basics would have transformed the two days. A good list of links to other unhappy people ici. |
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By: Mr Tom Raftery
on Dec 14 2006 at 12:17 PM EST 
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Phenomenal
A review of the session "Understanding globalization"
Definitely the high point of the conference for most delegates was Prof Rosling's incredible presentation. If you ever get a chance to hear Prof Rosling, don't hesitate to do it. |
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By: Mr Tom Raftery
on Dec 14 2006 at 12:15 PM EST 
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Unbelievable
A review of the session "Closing remarks"
After abusing the conference delegates by foisting his political friends on us instead of the speakers and panels we signed up to, Mr. Le Meur said "would I do it again? I would" Fool me once Mr. Le Meur, shame on you. You are not going to get a chance to fool me again. I and many others will NOT be attending Le Web 4, if indeed you consider trying to run it next year. |
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By: Mr Tom Raftery
on Dec 14 2006 at 12:09 PM EST
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Lured to Le Web 3 under false pretences
A review of the conference overall
The Le Web 3 conference had a lot of promise - unfortunately the promise turned into broken promises when conference organiser Loic Le Meur decided to turn the event into an opportunity to further his own political ambitions at the expense of the conference delegates. Mr. Le Meur cancelled several speakers and panels with sometimes only minutes notice to speakers and delegates so his political friends could be associated with 1,000 of the world's most influential bloggers. |
