Month: December 2006

There's nothing faster that Twitter on these things. I'm really seeing the value in Twitter recently. But to the issue in hand. Yeah I heard all about Le web 3 conference and the crazyness which was going on there. Tom Morris has a post which summaries the feeling across the blogosphere regarding The web 3. Its all split up so I'm going to rip most of it directly

There are downloadable (WMV) videos of many of the sessions so far. Judge for yourself. 

This story has hit TechMeme. 

Blipverts: “A PR coup for Six Apart in the French press I'm sure, Canal+ even had an outside broadcasting unit set up by the time I entered the centre this morning, but for the international Bloggers who paid to be here it's the final straw. Le Web isn't an international or European blogging conference, it's a standard trade show event which pandered to French political interests.” 

Graham Holliday: “Personally, I feel the conference has had the life sucked out of it by the egoism and ambition of certain individuals running the show and those hopping on the conference bike for a free publicity ride.” 

Robin Hamman: “Unlike Le Meur, and apparently oblivious to him, those guys from Belgium and a lot of other people sitting where I am haven't managed to crack a smile all day.” 

Tom Raftery: “What really annoyed everyone was the fact that the conference was completely hijacked and changed from a conference about new web technologies into a presidential campaign for the next French election. Two of the candidates, Nikolas Sarkozy and Fran�ois Bayrou were parachuted in to the conference schedule at the last minute, displacing other speakers.” 

Nicole Simon: “If you have an audience like this and a standing like this in Europe for this conference you invest some time in making the the program. This obviously has not happened. Which is why i have an amount of political content i never wanted to see nor wanted to attend and everything else got pushed aside because of that – without me having really a choice through this… Loic Lemeur has sold out his european peer group for some cheap headlines in french politics – if at all. He has destroyed trust and confidence in a way I have never seen this before.” 

Alex Papanastassiou: “we basically lost energy and momentum because some bunch of French politicians wanted to do themselves some public relations and build an image of modernity. If they are modern they ought to go for conversations, not top-down broadcasts of official truths and by the way accept questions for the audience, Mr Sarkozy” 

Adam Fletcher: “Theres a lot of negativity around le web today, the conference room is half empty and people seem more than a little disgruntled”. Also: “So alot of time is wasted pimping the panelists companies rather than engaging in discussion”. 

David Weinberger (who speaks later) on Sarkozy: “I feel like i've been lectured by a guy who has no actual understanding of the Internet.” 

Shane Richmond: “On the other hand there are plenty of people here who see today's appearances as a cynical political exercise that has derailed the conference. Loic's employers, Six Apart, apparently make a lot of their money in France selling blogs to politicians so perhaps there is an explanation in there somewhere… Many delegates are angry that, having spent a lot of money to come here and talk about the web, they are watching political broadcasts instead” 

Dieter Rappold: “I am disapointed. I am disappointed of you, this conference and I will never attend LesBlogs/LeWeb anymore – But as I imagine you won't give a damn, as you don't give a damn about your audience as it seems.” 

James Higgs: “In theory, Le Web 3 was supposed to be a place for the people on the bleeding edge of European Web 2.0 innovation to come together and discuss the way ahead. Instead, it has turned into a parade of politicians, product anouncements and a complete lack of any type of disagreement or debate… Despite all this negativity, there has been one big positive. I must say that the food has been extremely impressive.” 

Sam Sethi: “The speakers are all saying the same old thing and nothing new… Overall the event feels like it has run its course just like the Web 2.0 conference earlier this year. Le Web 4 will be a hard sell, certainly as far as I am concerned” 

Peter Forret: “I did not pay over Euro 600 to come and listen to self-involved French politicians talk about why they want to run for president” 

Ivan Pope: “I don't know how much rumbling of discontent there's been – but frankly I didn't pay my conference fee to be pitched by politicians. I think the organisers should put their egos away and resist the blandishments of all politicians”. And more: “Same old same old. Same old stories, same old corporate speakers. And same old friends of the organisers. It's like a love-in for a closed circle, with no fresh thinking or any challenge to the status quo.” 

Adam Tinworth: “Here we go, another session about the death of Old Media, with four new media types and a single old media chap as the chair. And precious little revealing content.” 

Stephanie Booth on Twitter: “I wonder what on earth is going to happen to LeWeb3's program now that politicians and the mainstream press have taken over.” 

webpronews thinks Dmoz is dead (via Stephen Cohen). You guys all know what the solutions to thi sare, right? It needs to be turned over to a more competitive model. 

Jim Moore has a post on Harvard, OPML and Dave's stint at Berkman. 

Robert Andrews has more coverage from Le Web 3. 

So once again bullshit gets called on le web/le blogs. Ben has a nice cover of the event too. So what do I think. Well no matter what you say about Sam Sethi, he's always a man in the room and in the crowd. He was perfect for TechCrunch UK. His style in writing was a little brash but it worked well when reviewing startups and services. Mike Arrington has got to be nuts letting him go for calling Loic a arsehole or was actually that Sam walked? Geez we need a Londonwag blog.

John just sent me an update on whats been going on. Mike Arrington writes in Putting TechCrunch UK On Hold, that everything was tollerable till Sam annouced something which was not discussed or approved.

Even though I think at that point Sam had reached the limits of acceptable editorial discretion, it still would not have necessarily resulted in him having to leave TechCrunch. The actions that finally resulted in his dismissal were additional comments he wrote on that second post, announcing “that TechCrunch UK will be doing a series of seminars and a conference next year as well as a series of smaller meetings in conjunction with friends & partners which have been in the planning for sometime now.”

These events were not discussed with me, and certainly were not approved. The fact that he announced and promoted them while trashing a competing event was a clear conflict of interest and was not appropriate. I do not consider this to be ethical behavior.

None of this had to be aired publicly, but Sam chose to write a final post on the blog after he was terminated stating incorrectly that he was being terminated because of the original post. He has also written publicly that he was terminated because he would not comply with my demand to delete a post. That is not accurate. This is driven entirely from Sam’s ethical lapse in trashing a competitor while simultaneously promoting his own events. That’s not acceptable – readers will not be able to determine if he actually believed what he wrote about the conference, or rather exaggerated his opinions to futher his own business interests.

Basic ethical behavior is not subjective. We will not associate with individuals who choose to cross the line.

The blog is on hold until we determine if/when we will hire another editor and continue writing.

I'm sorry but something still seems wrong. Either way, I'm sick of this, we need a techcrunch uk which is based in the uk and has the uk landscape in mind. John made a point that maybe the BBC should do this? I mean its certainly fitting with our public values. I'm not sure how blanaced we could but it certainly could put us back in the new media running. End of the day, I'm not keen on the fact that TechCrunchUK is now on hold, a major uk publication on hold because some american guy decides it. I'm not saying Mike's in over his head or anything, but you can imagine people are saying that Mike has snapped.

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