Le Web 3: old fashioned propaganda
We are 36 countries and we're bloody angry. Angry because we were sold out. Yes, Loïc, you sold us out. You promised us the new web. You gave us old-fashioned propaganda.
I was surprised really, when you told us that Shimon Peres was going to address us this morning. I thought it rather odd that mr. Peres was even remotely interested in the evolution of online communities. But okay, you had invited a Swedish professor yesterday, and he turned out to be one of the most interesting speakers — an achievement really, considering the outstanding speakerslist. So I thought, what the hell, maybe mr. Peres will surprise me as well. And yes, I rather enjoyed his talk, were it irrelevant to the seminar and a little biased to my taste when it came to the subject of the Middle-East. But some worldly wisdom and a couple of sharp oneliners always make a great substitute for breakfast. And okay, after that great party you threw yesterday, we weren't as sharp as we like to be on seminars. So, we forgave you Shimon Peres. We were even a bit glad you managed to invite him.
But we still wondered.
Why?
It became even more confusing afterwards. When a François Bayrou was announced, I was truly puzzled. When you told us that Nicolas Sarkozy was going to show up, I was beyond confusion: I was shocked. Really.
Three politicians? In a seminar that is supposed to discuss online trends? Where visions should be shared about the new webparadigms? A seminar you so boldly dared call Le Web 3? We pay you good money to hear what experts think the future of the internet will look like and you give us people who probably have their emails read out loud to them? Even worse, you have the attendees we came to see shorten their speech? No time for the Second Life demo because Sarkozy is coming? The great guys from World of Warcraft have to wrap it up faster then we can read their slides for him? For a man who comes and tells us to impose values on the net? Values of which I'm sure that he and I have a whole different set? A man who's reading out loud from some notes in front of him when he's talking about the Internet? A man who's addressing 36 countries but can't do it in English? A man who's giving a speech like he's addressing his voters and doesn't have a clue what the audience does?
Forget shocked. Think angry now.
Somebody told me that you are going into politics. That would explain it, wouldn't it? You get yourself an audience of 1300 people (your figures). From 36 countries (again your figures). You tell those hotshot politicians that the audience represents 60 million people, because they represent the blogging community (Technorati figures).
That figures.
You win of course, because you make yourself look important to these politicians. Politicians that don't have a clue of what we represent. And you are the guru who understands. You know how to play the 5th power. You, Loïc Lemeur, will tell them. And if they buy it, you win.
They lose, however. They lose, because you pissed of a lot of people by turning what could have been a great event into propaganda. You lose, because they talked about it on the backchannel on IRC. You lose, because of Technorati. You lose, because of posts like this one.
Allow me to give you a quote I've always liked. You'll like it, because it's from a politician as well. It says: “You can fool some of the people all of the time, and all of the people some of the time, but you can not fool all of the people all of the time.”
With bloggers, you can only do it for a short time.
Thanks for day one though; that was really great. And so was the party.
Crossposted on These Days blog
Sorry voor de regelmatige lezers, dit moest er even af. Hierna terug naar de orde van de dag.
http://druppels.be/movableType/mt-tb.cgi/983
Hieronder links naar websites die naar dit stukje verwijzen: Le Web 3: old fashioned propaganda:
» Apres Le Web, le deluge van Headshift
Le Web 3 was a spectacular conference - the biggest of its kind in Europe so far - and it provided a fascinating insight into the current state of the continent's social software scene. But the crisis of identity so evident in French politics is also p... [Lees meer]
Reacties (7)
Just remember the power you have in your fingers and just keep blogging with YOUR toughts and no one else's.
A quote that comes to my mind is "Occupez-vous de la politique avant qu’elle ne s’occupe de vous"
And maybe trow some wise words of Charles de Gaules into Nicolas Sarkozy his face:"I have come to the conclusion that politics is too serious a matter to be left to the politicians."
and indeed you'll always have Paris.
It's a hard thing to fool bloggers. They have some magical power, which is called 'writing'...
It's a shame that this event hadn't been taken serious enough (well, at least in my view) to invite just serious speakers... But maybe you and I don't know yet that those three are really 'web's best politicians'... ;-) (still curious what the non-politicians said about le web 3, though)
Wow, i just realised that this means Bob Marley stole that line from Abe Lincoln.
I'd like first to apologize as a French blogger and a French guy for the horrible view you may have for our country (I'll apologize for my English later)
In spite of being sometimes quite naive, I thought that LLM was someone clever, who had managed a fairly decent blogging and business success.
Like a lot of French well known bloggers, he seems to have forgotten that he was just a blogger, and has started to have political views. Fooling people attending Le Web 3(.0), he has just shown us he was an asshole. Hopefully (?), he will soon discover that politic is a very small and closed world he has not his place in. We have a locally well knwon movie here where the main character says "you can fool 1000 people once, but you won't fool 1 people 1000 times". I wonder how his business opportunities worldwide are going to evolve after this affair.
I was planning to to Le Web 3 but was broke. I'm happy to have been at work instead of giving 600 bucks to Mr Sarkozy.
And then, forgive me for my bad English, I really lack practice.
sprak Frederic de Villamil op December 13, 2006 12:13 PMI totally agree with you and I was a bit surprise that the participants didn’t react more to show their angryness/ disapointment… Loic Le Meur is more interested in politics and mainstream medias than bloggers, participation and sharing ideas…
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