Anthony Mayfield, who was great company during the Le Web 3, has posted his measured reactions to what happened.
Nicole Simon singles out Orange for criticism about the WiFi in the hall. I'd like to go further than that, because not only did their WiFi in my hotel periodically log me out for no reason, the WiFi in Gare du Nord refused to recognise my week-long account while I was waiting for my train. Really, I will avoid Orange whenever possible in future.
Ewan Spence gives a speaker's eye view of the problem:
Unfortunately Loïc Le Muir, the organiser, (…) cancelled my session for another ’surprise speaker.’ By deciding (for whatever reasons) to provide a platform to the ex-Israeli Prime Minister Shimon Perezm and French Presidential candidates Nikolas Sarkozy and François Bayrou, Le Web 3 was turned into a political rally, all the attendees and sponsors will now be used to provide legitimacy for the candidates views, a good number of speakers have not been able to put on a great show, and the general feeling from attendees is as close to a lynch mob that the blogosphere can muster.
Ewan managed to put on a superb show anyway, and I'll be blogging about that later, as gaming is a subject close to my heart.
Scoble noticed.
And his Naked Conversations co-author has wise words:
Ian, enjoy the conference. Meet people. Share thoughts. I hope the food is better. At the end of the event look back. I have a hunch you will feel you got your 600 Euros worth.
You know, what? I have many criticisms of the conference, but the chance to meet people like Tom and Stephanie and Hugh and Maarten and others made it more than worthwhile for me.
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Was really nice meeting you too! :-)
I agree with that. I thought the conference was crap - but I had a brilliant conference. But that's because the UGCC (User Generated Conference Content) was such high quality. It's just a pity the conference content didn't try a bit harder to match it - or at least to surprise and engage us.
I would certainly loved to have been there too, but it does seem unfortunate that many people were disgruntled by the strong political element. Perhaps a social media and politics conference would be a good idea for Loic, who obviously has considerable influence. I haven't read Antony's account of the event yet, I will catch up with that now.