Hence, the inevitable leaks:

Mashable's Pete Cashmore TechMeme's Gabe Rivera uploaded this pic, which shows the Gallic CEO of Seesmic, Loïc Le Meur, hiding behind a friend on a beach at the posh Fairmont Orchid.

eBuddy founder Onno Bakker uploaded this pic of a morning session, a masculine stew of baseball caps and intertwined hairy legs. For an event that emphasizes its laid-back nature, that sure looks like a tightly-packed agenda (lower right).

Baseball uniforms? Really? That looks an awful lot like work. It's hard to see the point of conning your employer into paying for a Hawaiian vacation like The Lobby if you have to suit up and work in a disciplined team. (Onno Bakker)

The virtual mouth of MSNBC's David Shuster congratulated Rachel Sklar, but his short url told a different story, linking to a video of... David Shuster.

The Washington Times' Christina Bellatoni took a moment out of the day to shoot and upload a candid picture of fellow conservative-media White House reporter Major Garrett, of Fox News. Jake Tapper was, naturally, thrilled.

Micki Maynard gave fellow New York Times reporter Brian Stelter some advice on dodging tornadoes.

Dan Frommer of Silicon Alley Insider finds Robert Scoble a bit hyperbolic.

Blogger/entrepreneur Loic Le Meur wished Eric Hippeau success on his freaky takeover of the Huffington Post.

Did you witness the media elite tweet something indiscreet? Please email us your favorite tweets - or send us more Twitter usernames.

Le Web is the brainchild of Loic Le Meur, an entrepreneur best known for peddling a worthless French blog startup to Six Apart, who has parlayed his very slight resume into press clips that include being named one of BusinessWeek's 25 most important people on the Web. (One of the 25 most self-important, more like it.)

Le Meur is handsome enough, improbably tall for a Frenchman, and charming when he wants to be. As a businessman, he's hopeless; his online-video startup, Seesmic, recently had layoffs and is said to be a hot mess. But it's as a showman that Le Meur excels. He outraged bloggers in 2006 by inviting Nicolas Sarkozy, then a French presidential candidate, to speak. (His critics viewed the invitation as crassly sullying the purity of a Web-focused event — as if the Internet were somehow apart from politics.)

To understand the problem, look no further than the guest list, which includes media ubiquity Marissa Mayer, the Google VP in charge of looking good and making money; an also-ran at MySpace; and Chris Anderson, organizer of the TED conference series. Just imagine: You can fly to Europe to attend a tech conference, where you can hear an organizer of a tech conference speak!

And yet people pay thousands of dollars — rather, charge thousands of dollars to their expense accounts — to do exactly that. They attend parties where they can meet exactly the same crowd they just saw last month at Web 2.0 Summit, and before that at TechCrunch50, and before that at Brainstorm, and before that at D6. Round and round they ride, on the tech-junket carousel. Why doesn't the tech-conference crowd give some of their social-networking tools a try and just gab with each other online? At a time when 533,000 Americans lost their jobs last month, that seems less embarrassing than flying to France to party.

(Photo via referencement-internet)

Nonsense. Seesmic wasn't just a bad idea; we hear from insiders; it was poorly executed, to boot. The company was in the midst of a top-to-bottom rewrite of its code. In the Seesmic video in which Le Meur announced the layoffs, he alluded to cuts in engineering — people "working behind the scenes" on the product.

What that tells me: Le Meur has given up on this horrendous waste of time and effort, and is just biding his time until he can offload it on someone. He has a good track record of doing that; Six Apart, whispers have it, regrets spending the money it paid for Le Meur's Ublog, a French blogging service. Unfortunately for Le Meur, these are less bubbly times. Will the $6 million he raised in Seesmic's last round see it through next year without an acquisition?

That's the only way in which Seesmic's fate is connected with the real economy: The suckers who would normally pony up for Le Meur's latest overpuffed adventure are hiding under their desks. Buying Seesmic is just another disaster they can put on their A-for-"avoid"-list.

• Steve Ballmer
• Mitchell Baker
• Jeff Bezos
• Sergey Brin, Larry Page, and Eric Schmidt
• Jeff Clavier
• Paul Graham
• Arianna Huffington
• Joi Ito
• Steve Jobs
• Jonathan Kaplan
• Loic Le Meur
• Jack Ma
• Matt Mullenweg
• Rupert Murdoch
• Craig Newmark
• Gabe Rivera
• Kevin Rose
• Sheryl Sandberg
• Jon Stewart
• Peter Thiel
• Maria Thomas
• Anssi Vanjoki
• Jimmy Wales
• Evan Williams
• Jerry Yang

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.

(Photo by Joi Ito)

• 0:55 Loic Le Meur is worried about the economy.
• 1:14 Brandee Barker hides behind a fern, says Facebook will never sell to Microsoft
• 2:30 BillShrink’s Peter Pham says a lot of startups are going to go under
• 2:36 Randi Zuckerberg wants you to register to vote
• 3:32 Steven Levy says the arrow points no where but up
• 5:43 Israeli superinvestor Yossi Vardi says that Lehman Brothers stock isn't worth as much as World of Warcraft shields.

Before flirting with the idea of Seesmic as an online-video studio, Le Meur had been aggressively pushing Seesmic as a platform for blog comments, even trying to convince Valleywag to deploy the company's product. The startup had been engaged in a major redesign, already delayed, that would have highlighted its video shows, according to a source. The layoffs suggest that plan is off. It's also attempting a complete rewrite of the site's backend code — an expensive endeavor. One has to wonder if this is a truly a strategy shift or just a ploy to slash the company's burn rate.

Investing in companies, even at late stages, is a relative bargain because of the strong euro, and once a company goes public, the returns are doubled again because companies trade at a much higher price-to-earnings ratio on average than the do in Europe. However, after telling a story about entrepreneurs turning land in southwestern France being managed by the government into a newly productive wine region from which guests were tippling the bounty, Wellington's Eric Archambeau explained that the new office was going to focus on business development. "Who needs another VC in Silicon Valley?" he quipped.

One of the companies in which Wellington has invested is Seesmic, the online-video tool founded by the crushingly gregarious Loic le Meur, who bent our ear over enabling his company's technology in our comments. If it means TechCrunch's Michael Arrington might drop by to share some of his deep thoughts, then I might just be able to make Le Meur's case with our publisher.

It's not that amazing. As CenterNetwork's Allen Stern first pointed out, each time a new user signs up for FriendFeed, the site suggests the new user becomes friends with "Popular FriendFeeders." On the list: Bret Taylor, Fred Wilson, Scott Beale, Michael Arrington, Loic Le Meur, Jason Calacanis, Dave Winer and Leo Laporte — despite, as Stern notes, the fact that many of these "popular" users don't actually use FriendFeed very often. Why? We haven't asked anybody at FriendFeed because the answer is obvious: So that the whole bunch of easily ego-fluffed blog blowhards will blog about how amazing FriendFeed is, without bothering to figure out why, exactly, it seems to be growing so much faster for them than everybody else.

Metcalfe's Law, first forumlated by Robert Metcalfe, states that "the value of a telecommunications network is proportional to the square of the number of users of the system." The problem is, that as actual humans connect, the number of people you can connect to instantly swells far past Dunbar's Number, or "The Rule of 150," another popular concept among social network theorists, which Robin Dunbar uses to describe the typical amount of other people a person can realistic communicate, connect and relate to.

Hence, I'd like to propose a synthesis of the two, which you're welcome to call West's Corollary. To whit:

As the number of users on an online social network grows, your perception of the ratio of idiots to otherwise will approach infinity.

Where "idiots" is intentionally subjective, because of course one person's idiot is another's comic genius. Ultimately, only 150 people you interact with will be not-idiots, a number that will quickly be dwarfed as everyone else on the planet signs up.

We do have a no video policy inside the ballroom as we don't have video rights to all stuff we show, so we have to do that. but we say it explicitly in the program and in notes to reporters and bloggers, so they should know. It's easier to gin up a controversy.

• Alan Levy (BlogTalkRadio)
• Alec Oxenford (OLX, DineroMail)
• Alejandro Estrada (DineroMail)
• Alexis Bonte (Erepublik.com)
• Andrew McLaughlin (Google)
• Anil de Mello (Mobuzz)
• Arturo J. Paniagua (Hipertextual)
• Auren Hoffman (Rapleaf)
• Axel Schmiegelow (Sevenload, Denkwerk Group)
• Benjamí Villoslada (Menèame)
• Brent Hoberman (Mydeco)
• Carlos Martìn (IG Expansiòn)
• Cedric Maloux
• Christophe F. Maire (Nokia gate5, investor)
• Claudia Gisiger-Gonzalez (UNHCR)
• Dan Dubno (Blowing Things Up)
• David Sifry (Technorati)
• Demian M. Bellumio (Cyloop)
• Eduardo Arcos (Hipertextual)
• Efe Cakarel (The Auteurs)
• Ehssan Dariani (studiVZ)
• Esteban Sosnik
• Esther Dyson (EDventure)
• Felix Petersen (Plazes)
• Hans Peter Brøndmo (Plum)
• Ibrahim Evsan (Sevenload)
• Ivan Communod (Vpod.tv)
• Jacob Hsu (Symbio)
• James Gutierrez (Progress Financial)
• Jennifer L. Schenker (BusinessWeek)
• John Markoff (The New York Times)
• Joichi Ito (Creative Commons, Six Apart Japan, investor)
• Jon Berrojalbiz (Trading Motion)
• Jonas Birgersson (Labs2)
• Jörg Rohleder (Vanity Fair)
• José María Figueres (Grupo Felipe IV)
• Jose Marin (IG Expansion)
• Julio Alonso (Weblogs SL)
• Lars Hinrichs (XING)
• Loïc Le Meur (Seesmic)
• Louise T Blouin MacBain (Louise Blouin Media)
• Lukasz Gadowski (Spreadshirt.com, investor)
• Lukasz Wejchert (Onet.pl)
• Marc Samwer (European Founders Fund)
• Marcelo Claure (Brightstar Corp.)
• Marko Ahtisaari (Blyk, Dopplr, FON)
• Mathias Entenmann (Betfair)
• Matt Biddulph (Dopplr)
• Megan Smith (Google)
• Michael Arrington (Techcrunch)
• Michael Jackson (Mangrove Capital Partners)
• Michael Wolf (Farallon Point)
• Nikesh Arora (Google)
• Ola Ahlvarsson (Result, FON)
• Om Malik (Giga Omni Media)
• R.J. Friedlander (Grupo Planeta)
• Ricardo Galli (Menéame)
• Rodrigo Sepúlveda Schulz (Vpod.tv)
• Rupert Schäfer (DLD, Hubert Burda Media)
• Scott Rafer (Lookery, Mashery, Winksite)
• Tariq Krim (Netvibes)
• Thomas Crampton (Next Media)

Le Meur then offered to buy Arrington out of Seesmic, a videomail startup Le Meur founded and in which Arrington has invested and written up in TechCrunch, conflicts of interest and all. I have to think they're joking, and if so, they caught Dave Winer with the gag. "PS: Welcome to MikeA's shit-list. Been here for a while. Not so bad. :-)" That's the best part of this farce so far. I can't wait for the ritualized kiss-and-make-up session.

TechCrunch: TED is such a lame conference. And I'm not just saying that because I wasn't invited. :-)

TechCrunch: regarding TED attacks - I defame anything cool that ignores me, until it stops doing so. it's worked so far.

loiclemeur: @TechCrunch and @Scobleizer TED is the best conference, the only blogger I know going 4free is Ethan Zuckerman. Pay your tickets it's worth it !

TechCrunch: @loiclemeur - id rather spend the money on a vacation. or donating it to Obama.

loiclemeur: @TechCrunch fair enough, don't regret a single $ from the TED cost. Not about news or reporting, very different.

TechCrunch: @loiclemeur - whatever. I'm erasing you from my friends.

loiclemeur: @TechCrunch I am also erasing you from my friends. Actually even blocking you. Please do not ping me anymore.

TechCrunch: @loiclemeur: for your reference: http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html

TechCrunch: "Going to war without France is like going deer hunting without an accordion."

TechCrunch: France: "They're there when they need you."

TechCrunch: ok, ok, last one. http://tinyurl.com/2opkp7

TechCrunch: i am writing a post. tentatively titled "Microsoft: The EU's ATM Machine"

loiclemeur: @all the french here. Check what @TechCrunch blogs about http://www.albinoblacksheep.com/text/france.html

TechCrunch: @loiclemeur "French friends please help me start a global fight against TechCrunch" hahahahahahaha

From: Heddi Cundle Sent: 13 February 2008 To: [redacted] Subject: Seesmic Raises $6 million - Embargo Release

I hope you're well. Please find below a press release under embargo until 5am (pst) tomorrow. Please let me know if you'd like to interview Loic Le Meur by phone before or after embargo lifts.

I'll call shortly but any immediate questions, don't hesitate to contact me. My details are at the end of this email.

Kind regards

————

Seesmic Raises $6 Million to Power

the World's Video Conversations

A-List investors are led by Niklas Zennström's Atomico and include Steve Case, Ron Conway, Jeff Clavier, and Reid Hoffman

SAN FRANCISCO, CA - February 14, 2008 - Seesmic (www.seesmic.com), the highly anticipated new start-up from Loic Le Meur, today announced that it has raised $6 million from internationally renowned investors. The investment is lead by Atomico - an investment group founded by Niklas Zennström and Janus Friis. The complete list of investors is:

* Michael Arrington - Founder, TechCrunch
* Steve Case - Co-Founder and former CEO and Chairman, AOL
* Jeff Clavier - Managing Partner, SoftTech VC
* Ron Conway - Early investor, Google
* Steve Garfield - Pioneering video blogger
* Dan Gillmor - Director, Knight Center for Digital Media Entrepreneurship
* Reid Hoffman - Founder, LinkedIn
* Michael Parekh - Managing Director, Goldman Sachs
* Mark Pincus - Co-Founder and former Chairman and CEO, SupportSoft
* Ariel Poler - Founder and former CEO, IPRO and Topica
* Jeff Pulver - Chairman and Founder, Pulver.com
* Martin Varsavsky - Founder, FON

Until now, online communication has lacked personality, being limited to text (IM, SMS, email). Seesmic changes that, bringing conversation alive through video, allowing users to be seen and heard and to broadcast themselves. Still in closed alpha, Loic is building Seesmic in the open, with the help and guidance of the Seesmic community. Through his daily video blog loic.tv and the "feature request" function on the Seesmic site, Loic and his team gather suggestions and solicit feedback from the community about the platform and its functionality.

"I'm thrilled to have such an unprecedented group of high-profile business leaders, entrepreneurs, and angel investors validate the potential for Seesmic," said Loic Le Meur, Founder and CEO of Seesmic. "This significant investment will enable us to launch a site built by and for our community, incorporating the products and features they've told us they want through their Seesmic conversations."

"Seesmic has grasped the opportunity to evolve the way people express themselves and converse online. Theirs is an exciting vision and I look forward to supporting the team," said Niklas Zennström, Co-Founder of Skype.

"At last, the Internet is really social: you can see and hear people express their ideas and thoughts, you can join in, and you can make new friends. With Seesmic, everyone can participate in live conversations rich with personality, bought to life through video," commented Ron Conway.

About Seesmic

Seesmic brings online conversation to life through video. Straight from their webcams, Seesmic enables users to easily post videos of their thoughts and ideas and participate in video conversations with the world.

Founded by Loic Le Meur - France's best-known blogger, entrepreneur, founder of the largest European web event LeWeb3, and Internet Advisor to French President Sarkozy - Seesmic is changing the way people converse on the Web.

What Seesmic's community says about Seesmic:

"The difference between YouTube and Seesmic is that YouTube puts video at the center, whereas Seesmic puts people at the center," Stephanie Booth, Lausanne, Switzerland's best known blogger.

Heddi Cundle
Consort Partners Ltd