turker.out.println

The social networking site Xing bought the Turkish professional networking site cember.net for a reported $6.4 million. cember.net is the market leader in professional networking in Turkey.

I think this move strengthens the fact that there is a growing market in Turkey. Earlier we had heard that Myspace was getting ready into the Turkish social networking scene. Looks like there is going to be a nice competition of global players in Turkey pretty soon. On the other hand, it is also obvious that Turkish users are valued way cheaper at 15 euros/member.

Today is celebrated as “National Sovereignty and Children’s Day” in Turkey. Ataturk, the founder of the Turkish Republic, devoted this day (in 1920) on which the Turkish Parliament was opened to the children of the world. In celebration of this day, Google is displaying a special doodle on the Turkish domain (http://www.google.com.tr). This was a result of an initiative called GoogleBizeLogoYapsana which translates in to “Google Design a Doodle for us”. The initiative’s original plan was to attract Google’s attention with doodle’s designed by the Turkish community and have one displayed on the Google homepage. Although, this just happened for the Google TR domain and doodle design is not one submitted by the community it can still be seen as a success.

Today I learned from Turkish blogs that YouTube is accessible from Turkey again. I am glad that a bad decision is reversed but I do not think this is going to make things any better. There has been a lot of negative coverage of the news all over the blogs and I think the damage is done. The lift of the ban did not cause as much discussion as the ban itself as expected. Here is the AP story and Techdirt’s take on the issue. There is also the opinion of The 463 that I was able to find.

An interesting question that came to my attention lately is who removed the videos first: YouTube or the creator of the video. As most people I thought it was YouTube who immediately removed the clip but turns out that the clip was removed by the uploader not YouTube.

I also learned this morning from a comment on my blog in Turkish that someone Turkish created a video in response to the offending one. I think it is a good one among all those stupid and possibly equally offending responses from Turkish people.

So, the ban is gone but the impression that Turkey is a country that restricts free expression remains.

Technorati Tags: youtube, turkey, turkey bans youtube

[tags] youtube, turkey, censorship, law, legislation[/tags]

I am sure most of you heard the news by now since it is even picked up by Techcrunch and the discussion is on the front page of Techmeme as of now with lots of related discussions including popular blogs like Mashable, IP Democracy and many more.

It makes me really sad that my country is taking an action that supports censorship and aligns herself with the likes of China and Iran when it comes to trying to block internet.

I read (in a Turkish source) that the same court ruled the ban said the ban may be lifted if YouTube removes the offending clips from the website. What is funny to me is that YouTube had removed the clips before the ban has started. So, I am not sure where this leaves the decision. My guess is that the ban will be lifted in a couple of days. But the damage is done and Turkey’s action is took its place in the history of attempted censorship.

To be fair, Turkey is not the only country who is struggling with the new legislative demands of the Internet. As I read in IP Democracy’s post, France is also taking action for making a large part of video-based citizen journalism illegal. Moreover, less than a week ago US Justice Department targeted image sharing sites in their quest to be able to increase their Internet surveillance.

Technorati Tags: youtube, turkey bans youtube, turkey

[tags] youtube, turkey, censorship, legislation, law[/tags]

Looks like today’s theme is city news. I read with great joy that Istanbul was recommended as the European Cultural Capital for 2010 by an independent panel. The EU press release points that Essen and P?cs were also recommended along with Istanbul. Istanbul was competing against Kiev as the last non-EU candidate for 2010. As I understand Istanbul will be the last non-EU cultural capital since EU has decided to end the tradition of including non-EU countries in the cultural program. According to the press release, Istanbul set its theme as “Istanbul: City of the Four Elements” - a bridge between Europe and the East. The press release also mentions that the decision will be taken by the Culture Council in the second hald of 2006 under the Finnish presidency.

This comes as great news for Turkey, of course. As BBC points out “the significance of the choice is more than cultural”. The chairman of the selection panel, Sir Jeremy Isaacs said the Istanbul’s bid had been well prepared and highly effective. He also mentioned that the application had not began with either the Turkish government or with the Istanbul city government but with public-spirited citizens. Sir Isaacs also said that the advice presented by the jury was not political but that choices may have political implications.

Technorati Tags: Istanbul, EU, european cultural capital, turkey

[tags]Turkey, Istanbul, EU[/tags]

Bill Gates and his wife were in Turkey for vacation early October. It is great that they chose Turkey for a vacation. Here are some pictures from his visit.

Via Digg

Bill Gates, Turkey