1 post from 2006

The web 3.0 was good. Ok, could have been better but it still was very worth the trip from Milan to Paris. Two full days of discussion about the future of the net, and the next generation of user-generated contents with the most proeminent figures of the web, such as Nicklas Zennström (founder of Skype and Kazaa), Brent Hoberman (founder of lastminute.com), Martin Varsavsky (founder of Fon), Tariq Krim (founder of Netvibes), Loic le Meur (organizer, and founder of many start ups including VOX), and plenty of other good entrepreneurs, VCs etc...

Also, Shimon Peres came by surprise to give a speech. His initative was pretty amazing: he happened to be in Paris, and by chance, heard about this conference. He then called personally Loic le Meur to ask him if he could come by to give a speech, which he did. It was flawless, to the pont, with just the right dose of humour. Besides, he was very open to questions. 

His conclusion was really inspiring: "the optimist and the pessimist die in the same way, but they live differently"..

On a sadder note, the noise in the press provoked by Mr Peres' venue attracted more opportunistic people: the candidates to the presidential race, Mr Sarkozy and Bayrou who also came later in the day to give a speech. This wasn't welcomed at all by anyone in the audience. Just like Mr Peres' speech was very genuine, sincere and was offering the interersting opinion of a very smart politician  thinker, the two candiates' venue was all the opposite, full of ego, never to the point and served only one purpose: self promotion. They brought with them a lot of media to make sure that everybody is well aware of how modern they are.

Therefore, everybody was a bit pissed off by this last minute change in the schedule, especially since the audience at the conference was mainly from abroad...  Sarkozy's speech was full of shit, never to the point ("I like internet") and very pretentious. He accumulated the worst moves: a bad speech, made in French (although the official language of the conference was English, as is the usual language of the web, and as is pretty logical when most people in the audience are from abroad...) and even worse, he refused to take questions at the end. He just proved how stupid and rude he was: he imposed his presence to people that never wanted him and then indulged in a boring monologue about himself. He provoked 10 minutes of Boooos in the room, and although all TV stations were in the room, none of them broadcasted this incident. This makes me seriously think about the objectiveness of the French media. Anyway, I feel very scared for France, as despite how stupid sarkozy is the fact that he aims at representing France abroad without being able to speak a word of English, when we look at its competition, he does seem like the least stupid. Once again, it seems like the elections will be for "the best amongst the worse..." Strangely, Bayrou's speech was slightly better; he basically proved that after all, he might not be as stupid as his previous behaviour and way of speaking might have suggested. He did (try to) interact a lot with the audience and spoke in English (it's sad that I even have to mention that..).

Apart from that, the Web 3.0 gave rise to some interesting speeches, I do regret though that the interaction between the speakers and the rest of the audience was limited to Q&A questions, it was in the same style as Davos's World Economic Forum, which comes as no surprise as Loic is an afficionado of these meetings.

All in all, despite the akwardness and usual arrogance of French politicians, I must admit that the quality of speakers at this conference was well worth it. Everyone was really easy to talk to, and it made me discover great new start ups. I come out of this really inspired!