The continuing inspection by the Turkey’s Information and Communication Technologies Authority is about to set, according to leading newspapers in Turkey.

As rumoured, the government asked Blackberry for a specifically designed protocol to provide corporate customers with the ability to transmit information wirelessly while also ensuring them with the necessary confidence that no one, including RIM (Research in Motion service), could access their data.

There will be more spesific and secure solutions like moving the servers to Turkey and run them in a high secure specialized protocol. By all means all Turkish Telecommunications Provider’s such as Turkcell, will help the process on this issue.

Two hundred thousand users are at risk

If the negotiations gone too far, Turkey may be 6th country to ban Blackberry services. Blackberry is very popular and there are approximately 200.000  users in Turkey. This may also affect the visitors come to Turkey.

As I mentioned about the global risks of cloud computing in one of my articles, this example can be considered as one of them.
You can read it from here.

Altough Turkish people are familiar with the latest bans such as YouTube.com and many other websites but it will be the first hardware ban related to it’s services.

According to twitaholic.com -a very useful website for some Twitter user statistics-  we have the top 5 list  -users who have the vast number of followers on Twitter- They make their own online marketing in there.

But there are thousands of celebs on Twitter and how come they stand at the top?

What they share, how they tweet?

Let’s check their tweeting strategy using the list order;

1: Britney Spears   5,534,023 followers

She is a an American recording artist and entertainer who everbody knows. She tweets about her personal life as the most of the top 5 list members. She shares where she is and upload her pictures from the moment.

But she also follows people too. She is following 417.000 people !  This is smart.

She replies questions, thanks for the flattering words about her. This is amazing for a simple guy who likes Britney Spears – a world star- replies him directly. This is smarter.

2: Ashton Kutcher   5,459,112 followers

Ashton Kutcher is famous.  However , Twitter is also famous with his shocking tweet – we all remember his tweet showing Demi Moore half naked in a hotel room- . As Britney, he shares his private life too.

He retweets, replies and chat with other celebs around the world and he is updating regulary. Remember the World Cup, after Brazilian star Kaka sent off in a match and Brazil struggled in the next game he tweets directly to Kaka as ‘’ Hey @RealKaka, we miss you!’’.

He shares surely entertaining content for his followers.

He has 5,459,112 followers.

3: Lady Gaga    5,444,409 followers

As I mentioned in one of my articles  –you can read it from here- Gaga surely knows how to make Twitter marketing. She has his own website and it’s integrated with her Twitter account. She rarely replies people but sometimes retweets.

Her content is impulsive!

She writes what her followers like to. Check her latest tweet, ‘’ Just emerged from studio bender to hear we won two teen choice awards. Thank you for believing in me little monsters! I’m your hooker. X’’

She has 5,444,409 followers.

4: Ellen DeGeneres 4.992.256 followers
She is an American stand-up comedian, television host and actress. Also known by high amount of people when she was a judge in American Idol for a year.

What about her content on Twitter?

She is funny. Her tweets make people walk with a smiling face. She replies and retweets with other famous people mostly from the TV bussiness.

She has 4.992.256 followers and she will reach the 5m mountain soon. Where do I know? She says  Check her competing tweet ‘’ I’m looking at the numbers. We are less than 14,000 away from 5 million! Who’s going to be my 5 millionth follower?’’  Isn’t it smart?

5: Barack Obama

His Twitter account is run by Organizing for America – a community organizing project of the Democratic National Committee. Founded after the presidential inauguration of Barack Obama-  4,867,136 followers

No retweets, no replies but he shares his catchwords and political slogans and agenda. Most of his tweets are inspiring and positive for his followers.

Check his latest, ‘’ We can’t stand by while pink slips are given to those who educate our children or keep our communities safe.’’

He has 4,867,136 followers and he follows 718.115 people.

Keep in touch   @OVural

We have always pursued innovative projects because we want to drive breakthroughs in computer science that dramatically improve our users’ lives. Last year at Google I/O, when we launched our developer preview of Google Wave, a web app for real time communication and collaboration, it set a high bar for what was possible in a web browser. We showed character-by-character live typing, and the ability to drag-and-drop files from the desktop, even “playback” the history of changes—all within a browser. Developers in the audience stood and cheered. Some even waved their laptops.

We were equally jazzed about Google Wave internally, even though we weren’t quite sure how users would respond to this radically different kind of communication. The use cases we’ve seen show the power of this technology: sharing images and other media in real time; improving spell-checking by understanding not just an individual word, but also the context of each word; and enabling third-party developers to build new tools like consumer gadgets for travel, or robots to check code.

But despite these wins, and numerous loyal fans, Wave has not seen the user adoption we would have liked. We don’t plan to continue developing Wave as a standalone product, but we will maintain the site at least through the end of the year and extend the technology for use in other Google projects. The central parts of the code, as well as the protocols that have driven many of Wave’s innovations, like drag-and-drop and character-by-character live typing, are already available as open source, so customers and partners can continue the innovation we began. In addition, we will work on tools so that users can easily “liberate” their content from Wave.

Wave has taught us a lot, and we are proud of the team for the ways in which they have pushed the boundaries of computer science. We are excited about what they will develop next as we continue to create innovations with the potential to advance technology and the wider web.

I always like the celebs who use digital marketing with smart strategies. Not just with signing up an account on Twitter and tweeting the concert dates.

Lately 24 yrs old young Lady Gaga made a smart digital campaign announced on her official website. The campaign is simple but smart, tweet to meet @LadyGaga and win a trip to the Monster Ball in Las Vegas!

Twitter is such a powerful medium for marketing as many people in this bussiness started to call it as “Twitter Marketing”.

There is a Tweet buton on the page and when you use it, with your Tweet you will follow @ladygaga, @livenation, and @interscope on Twitter.

Latest tweet about Lady Gaga also shown on the website, it’s good tactic because it keeps the website updated with user generated content easily.

Lady Gaga has 5,225,327 followers and she is following 148,931 people on Twitter.  One simple tweet of her reaches 5 millon people in a second.

She uses Twitter as you should do if you want to make Twitter marketing.

Here the official announcement

Just dance  with Lady Gaga on Twitter

Nokia announced the launch of a new range of mobile applications and content tailored for Ramadan. The new range of Ramadan applications 2010 have now become available on Ovi Store, the updated mobile applications tailored for Ramadan can now be downloaded on the compatible Nokia devices for free directly from Nokia’s Ovi Store.

“The overwhelming response and feedback that we received from last year’s offering and the number of downloads that exceeded a million, allowed us to improve and expand this year’s application offering. Nokia users have now a single and easy access to many of the cherished experiences that Muslims like to be close to, and keep them connected to Ramadan. This year the  applications also support a wider range of devices including both touch and non-touch Nokia devices, and are available in more languages” said Haisam Jamal, General Manager – Nokia Levant.

This year’s Ramadan applications are feature packed, and include the Holy Quran, Prayer Times, Hadith, Boyoot Allah, Arabica, Mozzaker, and Makkah and Madinah. New features include Quran recitation from multiple recitors from which users can choose to download in MP3 format. Prayer timings and Qibla direction are provided for 1000 cities in 200 countries, along with the ability to add, remove, update and edit any location using the GPS.

The new Boyot Allah helps Muslims to locate the nearest mosque on Nokia’s free Ovi Maps and Navigation platform. The new mobile services also feature locations of Major mosques in the GCC and the world, such as the two holy mosques, Masjid Al Haram in Makkah and Masjid Al Nabawi in Al Madinah. Additionally users can also find locations of mosques all around the world using free Ovi maps available on Ovi store.

“This is a region that is greatly important to us and we have committed to ensure that we tailor solutions that meet the local needs, ” Jamal added. “Ramadan applications for 2010 are free and offer a variety of content from a range of global and local content providers ready to be downloaded for the widest range of devices.”

The Ramadan applications are developed by ASGATech, a Forum Nokia Premium Partner in the Middle East, with all content reviewed and approved by Al Azhar Al Shareef.

Ramadan applications for 2010 are compatible with a range of Nokia devices including Nokia N97 mini, Nokia E72, Nokia E52, Nokia X6, Nokia 5230, Nokia 5530, Nokia C5, Nokia 5235, Nokia 5800, Nokia E5, Nokia 6700 slide, Nokia 5233, Nokia X3, Nokia 6303i, Nokia 2710 and Nokia C3. The user interface for the applications is available in English, Arabic, Farsi, French and Urdu.

Nokia 2010 Ramadan Applications include the following:

- The Holy Quran: allows users to read, search, bookmark and listen to Quran recitation.

- Prayer Times: provides prayer timings and Qibla direction for 1000 cities in 200 countries, along with the ability to add, remove, update and edit any location using the GPS.
- Hadith: gives an easy and convenient way to read the Honorable Hadeeth from Sahih Bukhari, Sahih Muslim, Riyad us-Saliheen, Holy Hadeeths and Arba’in An Nawawi.

- Boyoot Allah: helps Muslims locate the mosques in different cities using Ovi free maps around the world.

- Arabica: helps non-Arabic speaking Muslims to read and understand Quran, Hadeeth and Dua in Arabic by self-learning or with the help of online teachers through their mobile.

- Makkah and Madinah: offers a mobile guide with multimedia content and the most famous places that people can visit during Hajj and Umrah.

- Mozzaker: allows mobile users to listen, search and translate a large collection of daily Azkar and selected supplications. People can also download more Azkar and share with friends and family via SMS and MMS.

Of course it became popular with the pre-loading in Nokia cellphones in 1998, this game is a bit older than that. The Snake game originated with the arcade game Blockade, released by Gremlin in 1976.

This classic game now comes to the world’s second biggest search engine motor, as you know, Youtube – video-sharing website. Actually it’s just an easter egg now but I think YouTube plans more on that.

I tried it on a video of Bohemian Rhapsody & Muppet Show, you can try yourself  on videos with the new playback style, click on the video window, then hold left arrow on keyboard for a couple of  seconds video can be paused or playing while you’re  doing  this.

To try it yourself, I recommend the YouTube video of a plain black screen, which should become pretty popular with this discovery.

As rumoured, just Google, build a Google Games section, has pumped invested $100 million to $200 million in Zynga (the maker of Farmville) , the importance of social gaming is becomes critical in social networking.

Whatever of technical background, I think it’s a very good move of YouTube protecting it’s well known being of a ‘’lovemark’’

Cloud computing allows you to host your files on the web, run your own applications, launching operating systems and scale them.

Amazon.com the Online shopping site from the earth’s biggest selection of books is also one of the biggest cloud computing services on the market. Also there are other big boys on the park as Appistry-Cloud computing middleware, GoGrid, Flexiscale, Microsoft Live Mesh, Force.com, 3Tera and more familiar;  Google App Engine.

One of the biggest advantages of cloud computing is it’s global, private hard disk across the Internet; accessing from any computer and smartphone or even cell phone. Cloud computing offers you world class accessibility.

Is it really so?

This is fact that internet is global, but the laws are not.

Not long ago, Turkey has coincidentally blocked access several Google services, including Google Docs and its translation service because Turkey already blocked YouTube and some of the Google services use the same ips with YouTube. According to users in the country, docs.google.com, translate.google.com, books.google.com, google-analytics.com and tools.google.com are affected by the ban.

On another note, Turkey wants Google to pay 30 million lira (about $18.7 million) in taxes.

Users couldn’t access their Google Docs spreadsheets and documents. They couldn’t measure their web sites using Google Analytics.

Today, Iran, UAE, Thailand, Morocco, Iraq, Brazil, Australia (in schools) are blocking YouTube.  Do you see how many people can be affected with their cloud computing services?

Same had happened in 2009, because The Great Firewall of China blocked some of the Google Apps services.

China’s internet authorities blocked many Google searches for terms and websites deemed politically sensitive.

These are just popular issues and can be multiplied. People who use cloud computing services around the world, cannot always benefit from it’s global Access as it was told. As IT budgets pointing to the cloud computing this is still risky.

So far the issues are about Google App Engine but it’s clear that the risks and trust building mechanisms of cloud computing should be reconsidered.

But sometimes it is not.

Natural -let’s say organic contexual advertising- results are eveywhere on the web and they seem perfect with just by luck.

On the left, you see a health media company banner ad by www.realage.com.tr on a sports website (www.fanatik.com.tr) mentioning about Online Prostate Cancer Screening and Risk Assessment.

With a piece of good luck, the internet editor just updated a sports article about completely different topic but the picture shows as the same feeling as the banner does. The old man (Fenerbahçe SK former coach Luis Aragones) seems like having problems with his prostate.

Another example is from a news website www.milliyet.com.tr and one of their article about Benedict Garrett, a 30 year old sex education teacher who moonlights as, well, a porn star.

With a piece of good luck the random banner is a condom advertisement.

Isn’t it the perfect match?

These examples are beyond the technology and segmentation, they’re just the miracles of content and internet.

Enjoy when you see one.

Content is the king.

Marketing is a must.

So you should bet your card on your content marketing for sure.

What is content marketing?

It’s a technique. A technique creating a proper content for highly targeted audience in way of profit on your product, no matter what type it is.

It’s about entertaining your audience with exactly the content they need and they can consume easily. And it’s about being honest.

If you doubt on if it works, surely it does work already.

You got to create your content just for your purpose, no less no much. Sometimes you have  to be fast in updating depends on your aim, sometimes you don’t, if you trust your unique content.

It’s neither social media marketing, nor digital pr.

It’s content marketing standing on top.