LeWeb Blog
Are you hosting a LeWeb livestreaming get-together?
This year LeWeb will be LIVE all 3 days on 3 different UStream channels:
Plenary I: http://ustream.com/leweb
Plenary II: http://ustream.com/lewebplenary2
LeWeb TV Sponsored by IBM: http://ustream.com/lewebtv
A few of our friends let us know that they are getting together to watch the 3 UStream channels :
Hubrocket in Bordeaux, will be streaming LeWeb live (and still for free) at the Café Tupina
Cork, Ireland will be livestreaming at the NSC Campus
Are you hosting a livestream meetup?
Let us know so we can share the word!
Posted by Michelle Chmielewski
How SoundCloud got VC Fred Wilson on board
SoundCloud is the popular platform for easily sharing music anywhere online that found one of its investors at LeWeb. 
Fred Wilson was actually speaking at LeWeb in 2008 when a fellow entrepreneur, Christophe Maire, ("the kind that Silicon Valley has hundreds of and Europe needs more of", according to Fred) put together a meeting in the "hangout room" for him and SoundCloud co-founders Alexander Ljung and Eric Wahlforss.
Fred told us that he might have been using Soundcloud DropBox service before he met with them at LeWeb, but he wasn't very aware of the total service or the vision behind the company. So, right there in the middle of all the crowds, Alex and Eric gave their pitch to Fred, as well as their business cards.
Fred didn't invest at the time of LeWeb OR a year later when they raised another round, but he said that they never took "no" for an answer. "They were respectful but persistent," he said, "it was polite persistence. They kept coming back every 6 months or so and finally I said yes."
On the SoundCloud blog, Fred said, "The SoundCloud culture has captured an ideal balance between technical excellence and creativity. It’s a special group of people."
For Fred, start-ups looking for funding need patience and perseverance.
If you're going to LeWeb, watch Alex speaking on the plenary stage on Day 3.
Posted by Michelle Chmielewski
LeWeb Radio kicks off TODAY
Radionomy has been allowing music lovers and talk show hosts to create their own radio channel for free since 2008. You can create your own playlists, tracks, soundbites, jingles, and live programs and stream them whenever you want.
Starting today, LeWeb Radio is already live!
Widoobiz Radio and TechCrunch France will be hosting and directing the station, and this year at LeWeb, Radionomy is sponsoring an "open mic corner".
Listeners will be able to tune in to find out what the latest news at LeWeb is, and attendees are asked to stop by for a quick interview.
You can listen to LeWeb Radio by Radionomy at leweb.co, Radionomy.com, on Android, and on iPhone.
Radionomy now streams 30 million hours of radio per month and is raising $15 million round of funding with the help of the French investment bank Bryan Garnier.
Posted by Michelle Chmielewski
3 days left to start your networking for LeWeb, with Presdo Match, whosatleweb.com and hotatleweb.com
LeWeb starts on Wednesday! So you only have three days left to prepare all your meetings and check the participant list. As we hope you already know, Presdo Match is the official networking tool. If you haven't started using it, don't wait! It's available for all LeWeb attendes. More information about Presdo Match is available on this post.
We would also like to highlight two great tools that have been made or improved as part of our program "Adopt an entrepreneur" sponsored by Silicon Valley Bank and Lepe Partners. Bastien and Alexandre, the developpers behind these tools, won their tickets to LeWeb thanks to these apps!
Who's at LeWeb
Whosatleweb.com is a simple but powerful app that will let you to see who among your Twitter followers and friends are attending LeWeb (and on Twitter, of course), as well as the full participant list (Speakers and Official Bloggers are highlighted with their badge colors). These lists are sortable by name and follower count, so it's even easier for you to pick who you would like to meet up with.
The web app is also available for mobile use, so you'll be able to check it while attending LeWeb. See the example for LeWeb's Twitter account (what, only 30% of LeWeb participants are following our Twitter account?)
Hotatleweb
Hotatleweb.com is a Twitter wall dedicated to LeWeb. You can see what's being said about LeWeb (with #leweb and #leweb11 hashtags). This app also includes a list of participants (and this time you can search within their profile bios !) and tweets from participants are highlighted in blue on the main page. Some stats are also given: who has been tweeting the most, who is mentioned the most etc. This app is also available on mobile devices.
What's more, you can look at http://hotatleweb.com/live to see who is tweeting with the #leweblive hashtag. The idea is that people watching LeWeb on Ustream (Plenary1, Plenary2 wLeWeb TV Studio) can tweet about LeWeb with #leweblive and talk with others that are watching remotely.
Even if you can't be AT LeWeb, you should still be able to find a way that suits you to network, watch, and join in.
Posted by Cédric Giorgi
LeWeb success story: Work4 Labs
Stéphane Le Viet contacted Loic 2 years ago when he was busy launching his latest business for job hunting, Multiposting. He contacted us to let us know that the company is developing very well and should have a revenue of more than €2 million this year.
Last year, Stéphane was at LeWeb as part of our annual Start-Up Competition to show off his latest start-up to help people find work through Facebook, Work4 Labs. Bad luck - - his demo didn't work onstage.
Stéphane told us that in one year they have gone from 2 to 30 employees, and more than 10,000 companies worldwide are using Work4Labs to recrute on Facebook. The also just launched a complementary product, AdvertHiring.
"We knew several participants at last year's LeWeb, including primarily entrepreneurs and investors," Stéphane told us. "We went there with the intention of getting some reactions to and feedback on what we are building and to meet people who could help us achieve our vision of helping people find jobs more easily through their (Facebook) friends."
We had a few quick questions for Stéphane:
What did you do at LeWeb to get attention?
We made sure our live demo on stage during the start-up competition did not work :)
What aspect of LeWeb helped you network the most?
The casual events such as the Bob Sinclar evening party...
Why LeWeb (as opposed to another conference/event)?
Because it's Paris and because it's Loïc.
Most likely :)
2 pieces of advice for start-ups coming this year?
1. Prepare for the event as much as you can and, in particular, get in touch with people you'd like to meet. LeWeb can be extremely helpful for your business but expect everyone to be super busy, so get in people's calendar.
2. Don't be shy and reach out to as many people as you can. LeWeb is a unique networking opportunity if you're proactive.
Thank you, Stéphane, and best wishes for what's next!
Posted by Michelle Chmielewski
Spotted! LeWeb ads at the airport
This is definitely a first - - Matthieu Rouif from HeyCrowd spotted this at Charles de Gaulle airport in Paris - - Thank you Buddy Media !! :
If you see LeWeb anywhere else around Paris, ping us at michelle at leweb dot net, we want to know!
Posted by Michelle Chmielewski
Success at LeWeb : meltyNetwork
Alexandre Malsch, CEO & Co-founder of meltyNetwork ( (Melty, MeltyFashion, MeltyStyle, MeltyBuzz), the #1 web media group dedicated to young people in France (6 million unique visitors per month), said that having enough business cards is essential for LeWeb. Especially with more than 3,000 participants this year. 
Alexandre first went to LeWeb in 2009 with Microsoft Idea, a program for start-ups that gave him a demo stand to show off his website to anyone that was interested. Malsch developed a system for optimizing online media: an algorithm that determines the choice of subjects, key words, and publication times based on a cryptic set of real time information grabbed from the web and targeted towards young people (age 18-30).
Think about it: there is an Editor-in-Chief for each site that determines the tone and content and meltyNetwork's journalists are "true" journalists, there are algorithms that can always offer a keyword or clue as to what's hot at the moment.
He quickly found out that many people were interested. Including Pierre Chappaz, a well-known French entrepreneur.
He didn't recognize Pierre when he first came by their stand - "completely by luck" - until he saw his nametag. Pierre gave him his card, and several months later called Alexandre back because he remembered seeing them at LeWeb.
They held their negotiations, and Pierre is now an investor, along with Bouygues Telecom Initiative and the Ionis Group. This year meltyPub, to which meltyNetwork attributes its enormous success, expects over €1 million in revenue.
Of course it wasn't as simple as it sounds - Alexandre had a quick demo on a portable computer ready to show anyone at LeWeb and an incredible product in general.
At LeWeb, he said that the winning combo for him was "a short demo that you can show to get people interested, and a ton of business cards to follow up afterwards when it's less hectic."
Alexandre will be back this year with a few of his team members, so make sure to find him on Presdo Match - you may just be seeing the next Zuckerberg.
Posted by Michelle Chmielewski
Want to test drive a Twizy? Renault is LeWeb '11's Official Partner
Renault is back at LeWeb for their second year (Carlos Ghosn, Chairman and CEO of Renault S.A. & Nissan Motor Co. gave the opening keynote last year) as our Official Partners!
They just posted an awesome video of what you can expect from Renault at this year's LeWeb :
Renault will also be sponsoring a party for LeWeb Official Bloggers Tuesday, December 6th, and attendees will be able to test drive a Twizy!
Make sure you stop by their lounge, there was a mention of giveaways and potential business...
Follow Renault at @Renault_Live & @RenaultZE
Posted by Michelle Chmielewski
The story behind amiando at LeWeb
Amiando is awesome for events, right? But did you know that the CEO and co-founder of amiando, Felix Haas, practically had to show up at Loic's front door step before he would even listen to his pitch?
Founded in 2006, amiando was gaining speed as an easy-to-use ticketing service for events of any size and after they launched, many people told Felix that LeWeb is THE event in Europe - he had to be there.
Felix tried to reach Loic via common friends like investors in amiando. He said that it was difficult in the beginning: he tried to call, he tried to email, he tried everything - - and then he found out that Loic also is a pilot.
After learning about this hobby shared by both entrepreneurs, Felix sent Loic a message "Hey! You're a pilot, we should chat!" This time, he got an email back from Loic saying: "Hey Felix! It's easier to reply to you than to ignore you, let's have a chat."
2007 was amiando's premiere at LeWeb, although Felix notes that the number of attendees has significantly grown in 4 years. Fast forward to 2011: Verena Gladiator, long-term customer manager at amiando for LeWeb now spearheads amiando’s Paris office which was opened just two weeks ago.
He said that Loic actually helped amiando develop the idea of viral ticket selling. In 2008, they sat down to chat about how participants could use Amiando to involve more participants when Loic said, "hey Felix, you should create something where people can refer other people and event organizers can organize a discount to attendees that refer others." Hence, Amiando viral tickets weas born and today is used by countless event organizers around the world.
Last year, amiando was acquired by Xing for $14 million. Felix said that they were finalizing negotations in the lobby of LeWeb and they signed on the final day of LeWeb 2010.
"LeWeb truly helped us to grow, and really helped us to get growth and momentum in Europe."
And to think, Amiando almost wasn't even at LeWeb in 2007...
Phil Libin from Evernote loves LeWeb
Evernote just posted a video starring their CEO, Phil Libin, who will be speaking at LeWeb on Day 2.
They will be a part of our workshop program that you should check out, including a developer competition:
You can follow Phil on Twitter here : @plibin
Thanks, Phil!