Looking forward to Leweb08

I'm looking forward to Le Web in Paris tomorrow. It's courageous of the organizers (Loic le Meur) to attempt something of this scale (1500 people), especially at the moment. But it is exactly at the moment of a major slump that some of the best ideas are born. Leweb looks like its attracted many of the best ones from Europe, Middle East and North America. This has more chance of coming up with great ideas (and deals) than some of the traditional broadcast/new media conferences and festivals. Can't fault the LeWeb program this year...everything's set for this to be the best yet. I'm impressed by the way LeWeb learns from its participants. If they don't take up an idea, there's usually a good reason. Compare that with some other conferences (like Broadcast Asia in Singapore) who are deaf to any form of critique, having developed a format in 2001 and just repeating the same old thing, year after year. Let's hope the slump clears out the rubbish and stupid business models in the conference business too.

I've started a service for clients reviewing conferences rather like the Consumer Association. How do they rate in terms of networking value, content, exhibition, etc? When some of the conferences still demand 1500 Euro and more for what is a series of panels, my advice is to be very, very choosy about what's worth attending in 2009.