Blimey. I never thought that when things started to go a bit strange at Le Web that the resulting fallout would be so far and wide.
This evening the editor of TechCrunch UK, Sam Sethi got sacked. [Please note disclosure posted 17.29 Thurs below] Sam had criticised Le Meur, as half the blogosphere seems to be doing at the moment, and drew a comment from Le Meur saying he was an asshole. Sam then wrote another post highlighting, I think rightly, Le Meur’s outburst. Unfortunately, Sam went a bit far and decided to promote plans for his own events in the same post. I agree that this last bit seemed odd to me, but certainly think he got it right in his first post about Le Web and was also right to post again having drown the “asshole” comment from Le Meur.
I wonder how this will affect the growing post Le Web now that we have reliable internet access blog-lash:
Shane Richmond at the Telegraph
That’s only scratching the surface…and Tom Morris has a good set of links too.
Updated with some links: Thursday 10am
UPDATE: Journalism.co.uk does an eloquent job with this story – and reveals that it might still be growing.
UPDATE: 17.29 – I’ve just remembered that I met Sam from TechCrunch UK very briefly on Saturday evening. I thought he was Mike Butcher, also from TechCrunchUK. A lot of people I know probably know one or both of these people. Sam said to me on Saturday that we’d crossed paths before although wasn’t sure when. Just wanted to get that out in the open as soon as I realised it. Thanks.
Le Web 3 and Loic Le Meur
So, I’m back in London from Le Web 3, the conference organised by Loic Le Meur, Executive VP and Managing Director of Six Apart Europe. Le Web 3 is being heavily discussed in the blogosphere at the moment (see Technorati…
It was interesting watching this unfold yesterday – it was pretty fast-paced, with posts being deleted and then surfacing in comments elsewhere. Whatever errors in judgment that Sethi may have made, Loic Le Meur’s ‘asshole’ comment seemed entirely inappropriate.
I’ll be keeping an eye on Sethi’s Vecosys blog to see what he does next.
Seems strangely like deja vu, from last years “asshole” comment.
There is a brilliant cartoon on flickr.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/tommorris/322095739/
Thanks Dan. :-)
And all this fun and games even makes Le Monde:
Un blogueur victime du WEB 3 et… de la campagne présidentielle
http://www.lemonde.fr/web/article/0,1-0@2-651865,36-845862,0.html
And I made 20Minutes – yay – freesheet fame.
http://www.20minutes.fr/articles/2006/12/13/20061213-high-tech-Sarkozy-Le-Meur-et-la-revolte-des-blogueurs.php
Thanks for the link.
But, um, it’s One Man & His Blog, not His Dog. :-)
And Adam – you and Tom were great during Le Web. Great coverage.
Off topic Robin, but are you still using co.mments? I dunno about you, but I’m finding the feed is not reliable or comes through bvery slowly. I’m gonna retry http://www.cocomment.com/ which has a better user interface and is more popular.