Comments by Thomas Crampton…

“From his comments about the Sauna set up outside the conference, Carr shows his true European colors:

I found [the sauna] packed to its pine rafters with Brits, getting slowly drunk on licorice vodka and gleefully bitching about how disappointing everything was.

This gleeful bitching and cynicism by Carr and his fellow Europeans may have something to do with the difficulty Europeans have in getting things done.”

Le Web attracts Le Whinger – Thomas Crampton

To be honest; I think that Thomas is being generous. 

I think a large part of this is jealousy, and not jealousy of Loïc but of the sucess of Le Web.

In 2006 a lot of the British commenators who complained about Le Web said that next year they would organize a better conference in the UK. It must be said that those Whingers from 2006 have really shown Loïc up with their action and hard work.

End with a couple of podcasters.

And yet it made a massive difference to my memories of the whole occasion. Part of the fun was that the panelists on the Gilmor Gang were obviously demob happy. A couple of glass of wine and they were off to the races.

Anyway, Adam puts it better than me…

“One of the small moments of genius at Le Web 08 was the way the conference closed. It’s so easy for conferences to end on a down note, with a bit of a damp squib as the audience drift away into the night. No so this year’s affair, which actually managed to go out with a bang.

Finishing the conference with the live recording of two podcasts – Wine Library TV and the Gillmor Gang – gave a huge lift to the final hours.”

Le Web 08: Podcasting Live – One Man and His Blog

Complete star!  Watch the video!

• Overall he was impressive; he seemed to actually understand the subject and it was far more than just slogans.
• There are real projects underway. It was interesting that the initiatives that he talked about were all infrastructure based. The government has obviously decided that its role is infrastructure and its sticking to it.
• The digital blueprint for France was used as a model for the rest of Europe!!! Look what the GSM standard did for mobile in Europe.
• The crisis is a chance to revolutionize education (and again he talked about infrastructure).

• First, the speakers are generally more varied than in previous years. Two years, ago it was bloggers talking to bloggers; last year it was always the same people on stage. This year there is a real variety of voices.
• The venue is too large! This is too big. However, if it was smaller I wouldn’t be able to afford the ticket.
• There is a real atmosphere this year of slight panic. The startups are VERY worried but then I’m not a startup.
• Finally, there is probably half the people in the room that have found something to complain about so far. However, I think that we’ll all be back next year.

…starting now!