Thank you LeWeb

Busy typing at LeWeb08 Photo by dsearls via Flickr

I think online and offline are seriously connected. More than most of the Internet professionals suggest. I am of the opinion that every event should have a strong technological infrastructure, to allow people who cannot be there to consume the event. If you prefer, monetizing that as well.

LeWeb was packed misadventures. They spent more than €100K for wireless Internet connection,which was completely unreliable for the whole two days. They also had a serious problem with room heating leaving attendees in freezing cold.

Eureka

A lot of people commented on the above but forgot to celebrate the great success of LeWeb, mostly thanks to rezpondr a startup funded and helped by www.sleepydog.net which equals @philcampbell and @sleepydog

These guys, who represent the only real spark of creativity in this dull, credit crunch depressed, same old London, gave me the opportunity to connect to one page where I could find:

– a Ustream streaming of the event

– all the pictures from flickr tagged leweb

– all the seesmic videos tagged leweb

– all the qik videos tagged leweb

– all the twitter discussions tagged leweb

I had a chat with @philcampbell and he told me that:

…the idea is that a user/group/event can bring together livestreams and social content into one location to make the viewing experience more rounded for the user watching.   The content is displayed in a time based manner with content running from left to right. Newest content first.  Each piece of media has a lightbox on which the user can perform actions with that media.   If the domain is owned by the user that logs in you can also do various transcoding and distribution methods to convert media in a variety of formats.

If the above link no longer works, you can see a screenshot below (click to expand) or check eventca.st :

Few results that may interest you

– I listened to the talks in my nice and warm living room & with reliable internet connection. 🙂

– I had the chance to see pictures and videos in real time from all the other rooms as well.

– I read reactions of people listening and discussed with them during the panels over twitter.

– I networked with twitter users who were doing the same thing I was and established great relationships which are still going on.

– We peaked 3000 people watching and interacting through the live chat.

My suggestions

– Don’t bother yourself trying to understand whether leWeb was a success or not.

– Think about how the way we consume events is dramatically changing.

– Think about how perception of people attending your events is changing and expectations accordingly.

– Think about new audiences in New York when you are running an event in Japan and new ways of monetizing it.

– Think about twitter as the most revolutionary Internet tool within the events arena.

– Think about all of the above soon!