Feel the love, even if it's kind of uncomfortable, at Le Web 2008
Dashingly awkward entrepreneur Loic Le Meur was last seen making conferencegoers squish up in their seats with his "How to find the G spot" presentation earlier this year at Supernova. This December, Le Meur may bring yet more sensual discomfort to the attendees of his Le Web conference, organized by his wife Geraldine. The couple promise sessions on "Platform Love" and "Big Love" and "Love Entrepreneurship." Put on some Al Green before diving into the full invitation below:
Dear friend, As you know, I'm always in touch - blogging, Seesmic-ing and Twitter-ing on a daily basis. I've decided in addition to the ongoing updates from the lifestream and daily activities, I'll use an occasional email to provide more depth on specific topics and news. There is no question that social software is powerful, but I believe that email is one of the best ways to stay in touch. I promise I will reserve these emails only for news or comments I consider important - so you don't have to worry about my flooding your inbox! My intention is for these notes to be non-intrusive and informative. If you received this email it's because we are in contact or have been in touch in the past. If you don't wish to receive my email updates, you can unsubscribe immediately. Feel free to reply as well, I will read all the replies and answer as many as I can. With that, here is the first edition of my email updates - and it's about the fifth edition of LeWeb. I hope you will be as excited as I am about this year's conference. It's a major undertaking to produce an event of this size and my wife Geraldine, who is in charge of the entire production, and Cathy Brooks, who helped on the program, have been working for months to create what I feel is the best edition of LeWeb yet! This year's program brings many fresh faces to the LeWeb stage. Geraldine and I announced the LeWeb 08 program at a press conference last week. This year's conference, which takes place in Paris on December 9th and 10th portends to be as big as before, with at least 1500 entrepreneurs, journalists, bloggers and Internet industry players from 40 Countries. We hope you will join us this year so that once again Paris will become the center of the Internet universe for these two days! What began several years ago as a pure technology gathering, LeWeb08 has shifted into an event that brings together the best and brightest from technology and business to talk about technology as well as high-level social issues. The change began in 2006 when Israeli President Shimon Peres spoke at LeWeb. He presented the audience with a call to action. He challenged them to step forward and get involved in social and political issues and leverage the influence of their technology platforms. As a direct result of his speech, several entrepreneurs began efforts focused on social and political issues - taking advantage of their audiences to influence change. In 2007 our theme was "evolution in technology, revolution in behavior", and we shifted even more strongly towards giving our audience an opportunity to hear from thinkers whose perspectives could influence and guide their actions. Powerful presentations from people like Philippe Starck energized the crowd and once again galvanized people to get involved. For 2008 technology will still play a central role in the proceedings, but we will expand our talks by bringing an even more unique topic to the stage - love. And that is love in all permutations from romantic love (of course) to love of innovation, entrepreneurship, to the way in which our now truly connected "global village" can be a platform for championing critical social issues. Nearly 400 friends of LeWeb from last year and from 19 countries have already registered (see the full participants list), we really hope you can join us, please register here and if you have any problems registering contact Geraldine at geraldine@lewebparis.com This year again we will have our startup competition in partnership with Seedcamp with 30 startups presenting. It is a good time to register your startup to the competition, applying is free of charge. We will accept startup applications until October 20, 2008. Our loyal partners make it all possible and are supporting LeWeb this year again. We still have many sponsorship opportunities, contact Geraldine if you are interested. Thank you Microsoft, Google, Nokia, ERepublik, Steek, Six Apart, Swisscom, myspace, TechCrunch, LCI.fr, Business Wire, Lefigaro.fr, Emailvision, Altaide, Moovement, blueKiwi, webnode, radionomy, goojet, automoti .com, codeur .com, tequilarapido .com, Wellington Partners, Cotty Vivant Marchisio & Lauzeral, Power Vote, Intruders, IE Club, Fing and Fevad. Geraldine and I, along with the entire LeWeb team, look forward to seeing you all in Paris! You can download a PDF of the program here. Program video During the 2 days of conference, our speakers will be interviewed on stage by the following reporters, bloggers: • Michael Arrington, Co-Founder & Editor, TechCrunch • Steve Gillmor, The Gillmor Gang • Dan Farber, Editor-in-Chief, CNET News • Om Malik, Editor-in-Chief, GigaOm • Jennifer L. Schenker, Correspondent, BusinessWeek • Robert Scoble, Video Blogger, Fast Company • Kara Swisher, Co-Executive Editor, AllThingsD.com; Blogger, Boomtown; Co-Executive Producer, D: All Things Digital DAY 1 - DEC 9, 2008 – PLENARY ROOM 08h45 – 09h00 Opening remarks - Geraldine & Loïc Le Meur – LeWeb Founders 09h00 – 09h20 Dan'l Lewin - Microsoft Corporation ,Corporate Vice President for Strategic and Emerging Business Development. 09h20-09h40 Fireside Chat with Nikesh Arora - President, Operations EMEA & Vice-président, Google UK Ltd 09h40-10h00 David Weinberger - Harvard Berkman Center for Internet & Society,Harvard University 10h00 – 10h30 Chris DeWolfe Co-Founder & CEO, MySpace.com 10h30 – 11h00 COFFEE BREAK sponsored By Codeur.com 11h00 – 11h20 Speaker to be announced 11h30 – 11h50 Linda Avey - Co-Founder, 23AndMe, Inc. 12h00 – 12h45 Helen Fisher - Visiting Research Professor, Rutgers University 12h45– 14h15 LUNCH BREAK 14h30 – 15h10 Paulo Coelho, Author 15h10 – 16h00 Loving Brands Online - Panel Panelists: • Georges-Edouard Dias, Team Leader, Internet & e-Business, L'Oreal • Matthias Lüfkens, Associate Director, World Economic Forum • Marc Mathieu, Senior Vice President, Global Brand Marketing & Creative Excellence, The Coca-Cola Company • Michael Tchao, General Manager, Nike TechLab Moderator: Dan Farber, Editor-in-Chief, CNET News 16h00 – 16h20 Yossi Vardi - Investor & Entrepreneur 16h20 – 16h45 COFFEE BREAK 16h45 – 16h50 Mike Butcher - UK & Europe Editor, TechCrunch 16h50 – 17h30 Money Talks: How scared should we be of the markets crash ?Panel Panelists: • Eric Archambeau, General Partner, London Office, Wellington Partners • Jeff Clavier, Founder & Managing Partner, SoftTech VC • Mark D. Kvamme, Partner, Sequoia Capital • Fred Wilson, Partner, Union Square Ventures Moderator: Ouriel Ohayon, General Manager, LgiLab, Editor, TechCrunch France 17h30 – 18h00 Fireside Chat with Marc Simoncini - Founder & CEO, MEETIC and Loïc Le Meur 22h00 – 02h00 LeWeb'08 Party with MySpace.com DAY 2 - DEC 10, 2008 – PLENARY ROOM 08h00 – 09h00 WELCOME BREAKFAST 09h00 – 09h20 Opening remarks: Why Are We In Paris? Eric Besson – France Secretary of State for New Technologies Surprise Guest moderated by Loïc Le Meur 09h20 – 10h00 Platform Love: Getting Along - Panel Panelists: • Travis Katz, Vice President, International Development, MySpace • Dave Morin , Senior Platform Manager, Facebook • David Recordon, Open Platforms Tech Lead , SixApart • Google Speaker TBA Moderator: Marc Canter - CEO, Broadband Mechanics 10h00 – 10h20 Love of Education: A shifting paradigm Robin Good - New Media Innovator, Explorer, Independent Publisher, Master New Media 10h20 – 10h40 Chris Anderson - Curator, TED 10h40 – 11h10 COFFEE BREAK 11h10 – 11h40 Love Entrepreneurship Your Own Way: Two perspectives on starting a business • John Buckman - Founder & CEO, Magnatune.com • Reid Hoffman - Chairman and President, Products, LinkedIn 11h40 – 12h00 Dr. Brian Cox - The School of Physics and Astronomy, University of Manchester 12h00 – 12h30 Love of Entrepreneurship - Jason Calacanis - CEO, Mahalo 12h30 – 13h00 Speaker to be announced 13h00 – 13h30 Sharing Love - Joichi Ito – CEO, Creative Commons 13h30 – 15h00 LUNCH BREAK 15h00 – 16h00 Start-Up Competition Awards and Winners 16h00 – 16h30 Dr. Werner Vogels, VP & Chief Technology Officer, Amazon.com 16h30 – 17h15 European Originals - Start-Up Companies That Are Uniquely European - Panel Panelists: • Jacques Antoine Granjon, CEO, Vente Privee • Jonas Birgersson ,Chairman, ViaEuropa • Klaas Kersting, Gameforge • Speaker TBA >Moderator: Jennifer L. Schenker,Correspondent, BusinessWeek 17h15 – 17h45 Fireside Chat with Gary Vaynerchuk - Host, Wine Library TV.com – Loic Le Meur DAY 2 - DEC 10, 2008 – LeWeb "Deep Discussion" Stage 9h15 – 10h00 Your Mobile is Your Love Device: Nokia 10h00 – 10h30 The Revenge of Email - Panel Panelists: • Nick Heys Founder & CEO, Emailvision • Jason Calacanis, CEO, Mahalo Moderator: Robert Scoble, Video Blogger, Fast Company 10h30 – 11h10 Social Advertising: Where's the Love? - Panel Panelists: • Seth Sternberg - Meebo • Lorenz Bogaert – Co-founder and CEO Netlog.com • Speaker TBA Moderator: Scott Rafer - CEO, Lookery, Co-Founder, Mashery, Chairman, Winksite 11h10 – 11h50 Love in Motion: Mobile ubiquity and social networks Panelists: • Dr. Lai Kok Fung - CEO & Co-Founder, Buzzcity • Ewan Spence - WuBud • Antonio Vince Staybl - CEO & Co-Founder, itsmy .com (a Gofresh company) Moderator: Ferhan Cook - Co-Founder, Any Screen Productions 11h50 – 12h30 Big Love: Embracing Asia's Market Explosion - Panel Panelists: • Masashi Kobayashi • Others to be announced Moderator: Thomas Crampton 12h30 – 12h50 Modesty & Shamelessness on the Web - presentation/discussion Who do we like, love and relate to online? And what are we ready to give them about ourselves? • Dominique Cardon - Sr. Researcher, Orange Labs • Daniel Kaplan - FING Seats are limited so register now and see you in Paris.