Le Web 08, the review

a guest post by Yorgos Dedes, winner of the contest for a semi-free LeWeb ticket

Another LeWeb has reached its end. LeWeb 08, Paris – the major annual international internet conference in Europe, organized by Loic Le Meur (founder of Seesmic) and his wife Geraldine, has been a controversial event. More than 1700 participants from all over the world, a cast of international names, a start up competition, big sponsors, demo rooms-workshops, two French government ministers and two after-show parties can sum up what Le Web 08 was all about.

Criticism

This event didn’t meet the expectations of many of its participants. That was obvious. Some people called it “No Web” since you had to pray for some minutes of internet. Room temperature for the first day was too low to survive without wearing your coat. The food was really tasty if you had the luck to taste it. Loic describes the problems much better than me and I really like the way he does it. Except for the infrastructure issues, Loic got critised about his softball interviews, especially these ones regarding the sponsors.

But still, Le Web is about networking. Le Web is people from around the globe, gathered in the same place in order to meet old friends and make new ones. A place where you can meet in personal people who you only know through the web, pitch your ideas and get feedback. So, for a newbie like me, Le Web was a great experience! The content may not have been always of high level, but there were times that I really enjoyed being there. I feel really lucky for attending Le Web and I want once more to thank opencoffee.gr who gave me this chance.

Highlights, Day One

So, let’s go through the highlights of Le Web 08. On day one, David Weinberger with his presentation entitled “leadership at the end of the age of information” pointed out that leadership is property of a network. In the past information naturally flowed up to the leaders, at the top. Now information is everywhere and available for everyone. So, a leader nowadays has to get the best of the best network.

Helen Fisher gave a long presentation trying to explain how love works and how important it is for us to clear this out. One thing among the many points that caught my attention was that after experiments, love and coccaine activate the same part of the brain!

Then, Paulo Coelho, the famous Brasilian author and blogger, made clear that “You’ll have to share in order to get some revenue”. He has tested this policy, against his publicers willing, and he found out that people download the book but don’t read it, they just wait for the hardcopy.

A really interesting approach on the market of virtual goods was made from Susan Wu, with her presentation “Virtual Goods Make Real Money”. People do spend money on things that only exist in a database. She mentioned Tencent —china’s leading IM platform, boasting over $1Bil in revenue and 45% operating margin.

Yossi Vardi and his great sense of humor kicked things off by talking about a company idea based on death, pointing to the growth market, boxed product and lifetime guarantee! He mentioned that he doesn’t read business plans because internet companies are often entering uncharted waters. So it’s just like science fiction. Vardi finally says that getting users is the most important thing, money will then follow.

Mike Butcher, the UK editor of TechCrunch gave a nice update on Europe’s Start up Scene, while trying to share his passion with us. He talked about the great potential of european start ups and mentioned some of the people that helped him during his Techrunch meetup tour, like George Tziralis. All of us who were at that summer opencoffee meeting remember the great time we had.

Then, it was time for a really interesting discussion on “Money Talks: Getting Financed in a Recession – Panel”. I believe that the best quote came from Fred Wilson. “Don’t pitch me. Send me a link to your existing service. If I like what I see and enjoy the use experience, I’ll call you and invest.”

Highlights, Day Two

The second day proved to be more interesting than the first and things rolled much smoother.

Loic, in a jacket, welcomed Eric Besson, France State Secretary for Prospectives and Evaluation of Public Policies and Internet. During their short discussion in French, Mr. Besson pointed out that France is Europe’s Formula 1. Over 95% broadband coverage in France, fiber optic to ensure highest speed, the switch over to digital transition of television by 2011 and the development of mobile internet are the government’s priorities.

Chris Anderson, Curator of the TED conference, has many “Ideas worth spreading” that couldn’t be spread without the internet. So, at his inspiring presentation he mentioned the importance of the web on inspiring people all over the world. Anderson showed a picture of a some kids in Pakistan, his home-country. He predicted that in a few years, these children will have a cell phone that’s “more powerful than the computer you’re looking at right now”. “Will they look at games, violence, and pornography? Or will they look at information that might take them out of poverty? If you’re working on such a service, I salute you. What you’re doing is a gift of love to these children.”

John Buckman went on stage and gave one of the most useful presentations on how to build your own company and enjoy your life. Enjoy the whole keynote.

Employees Suck

View SlideShare presentation or Upload your own. (tags: bookmooch magnatune)

Maurice Levy, a successful and extremely experienced marketing mogul, gave some useful advice for young enterpreneurs. “Don’t rush. Do one thing, do it well, and own it. Then go to the next level.” And he continued. “Be a recognized leader. Don’t try to do many things and go to many countries too soon. Build a solid base first, then move on.”

Then it was time for Michael Arrington from Techcrunch to interview Marissa Mayer, Google Vice President Search Products and User Experience. Michael asked whatever he was aloud to, reaching the limits at some points. Questions had to do with the launch time of Googles Zeitgeist, the goals of Chrome and the beta issue, the useless Search Wiki and local search. Overall, Marissa was open enough and that gave the chance to the audience to make her a few interesting questions.

One of the small moments of genius at Le Web 08 was the way the conference closed. Gary Vaynerchuk is a hugely charismatic and passionate guy, he never stops talking and his live winelibrary show was so funny and revitalizing! Thumbs up for Gary!

Equally, the Gillmore Gang was the best way to close Le Web. A bunch of intelligent geeks, being at the front line of tech news arguing on almost everything! Americans do know how to perform a show on stage. And we had a great time watching them!

Not to forget to mention that the three finalists start ups of this event can be found here.

Criticism

Highlights, Day One

Highlights, Day Two

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