Photos: What went down at the LeWeb tech conference
Technology giants and web entrepreneurs get connected and social in Paris
LeWeb is an annual internet gathering that aims to turn a dingy industrial estate in the north of Paris, France, into a little slice of Silicon Valley for two days in December.
2010's event, which took place last week, drew a crowd of 2,500 entrepreneurs, technologists, investors, bloggers, developers and start-ups looking for that elusive VC.
Google's Marissa Mayer, VP of geographic and local services, took a turn on the LeWeb stage for a Q&A with TechCrunch founder Michael Arrington, discussing how the Google's search service is likely to evolve in future.
Mayer also hinted that Chrome OS tablets could be on the cards.
Loïc Le Meur, entrepreneur and organiser of LeWeb, dressed in a costume from the popular iPhone game Angry Birds as he prepared to interview Mikael Hed, CEO of Rovio, the creator of the game.
Teen entrepreneur and web developer Ricardo Sousa also took to the stage - putting the boot into the education system for failing to encourage innovative thinking. Teenagers make good entrepreneurs because they are willing to take risks, said Sousa.
Another speaker - Matthias Lüfkens, head of social networks at the World Economic Forum - talked about how a new political diplomacy is linking heads of government around the world via the medium of Twitter, dubbing it "twitplomacy".
"This is more secure than the US diplomatic cables I believe," he quipped.
Even the North Korean government uses Twitter, said Lüfkens, who noted the regime is fond of posting photos via Twitpic - an app that does not allow comments to be moderated, meaning unmoderated thoughts are added to the regime's imagery, as pictured in the slide above.
BlackBerry, Facebook, Google, LinkedIn, Microsoft and PayPal were all at the LeWeb event chasing developers, running workshops and meet-and-greet sessions throughout the two-day event.
The world's biggest mobile maker Nokia was also in evidence at LeWeb, encouraging developers to get involved with its Ovi app store.
Mobile operator Orange chose LeWeb to launch a web portal, pictured above. The portal is aimed at simplifying the app submission process for Android developers who want to get their apps on the Orange App Shop.
The service - called Orange Partner Connect - also enables developers to manage apps they have submitted for evaluation to Orange and to track usage.
Orange takes a 30 per cent revenue slice from apps hosted on its App Shop, with developers getting 70 per cent. Payment for the apps is integrated into Orange's customer billing.
Another LeWeb attendee was social gaming company Zynga - creator of the FarmVille game for Facebook - whose stand featured a fluorescent model of the Eiffel tower.
It wasn't just tech companies seeking to promote themselves at the event. This enterprising attendee advertised his need for an investor by wearing a T-shirt saying, "Have a working prototype, looking for a VC".
The spectre of success was never far from delegates' thoughts...
...and some attendees wore hard hats with their Twitter IDs written on them, hoping to get noticed.