Atif Unaldi » Youtube http://atifunaldi.com Web Log, We Blog - Web Rain, We Brain Tue, 14 Jul 2009 10:43:45 +0000 http://wordpress.com/ en hourly 1 http://www.gravatar.com/blavatar/172f75c1a8ce272921d01aa24d3685d6?s=96&d=http://s.wordpress.com/i/buttonw-com.png Atif Unaldi » Youtube http://atifunaldi.com What is the problem of Turkey with youtube.com http://atifunaldi.com/2008/12/10/what-is-the-problem-of-turkey-with-youtubecom/ http://atifunaldi.com/2008/12/10/what-is-the-problem-of-turkey-with-youtubecom/#comments Wed, 10 Dec 2008 15:06:57 +0000 atifunaldi http://atifunaldi.com/?p=108 ]]>

People who sees this problem just as a legal subject or as a censorship law can only solve it for short term.

The best way to understand this issue is through knowing the internet history of Turkey. Perception and appreciation of internet as a media has started with the foundation of haberturk.com. Haberturk used scandal news and events in order to call attentions as a news website. The need of controlling and inspecting the internet by hands of state begins when this site starts to becoming a thread to  the governing party of the time. A draft of law has been constituted. However since this act of law aims to control websites such as haberturk.com, it becomes censoring more than inspecting. Moreover, since legists who prepared it knows the traditional media more than the digital one, the law contains technically impossible procedures such as two photocopies of each webpage sent to local authorities etc. Liberals who realized this reacted hard to the law. This caused the moderate renewal of the law.
But, despite all the softening, this new law signed by the President of the time, Ahmet Necdet SEZER in 2005 contains censoring of media in its soul, so its logic of punishment was deep wide in order to increase its dissuasiveness. The law took the force of processing this logic from taboos of Turkish society such as child pornography, insult to Ataturk etc. That is because the legislation was enacted by agreement of all forces from media to public. These forces of which the law received its support was its Achilles heel at the same time. May be by this analysis, or just by coincidence, immediately after the law was laid down, a video broadcasted in Youtube was sued for one of the nine main components of the so known catalog crimes in Turkish lawbook. Eventually the case lead to a ban to Youtube due to those nine crimes mentioned.

This situation caused the forces in Turkey who supported this law once splitted into two. The main reason to this separation was not arised of the problem thereopen but the worries. Yet for the moment Youtube.com should show respect to the subject which is very sensitive in common for Turkish people and remove the video. However, liberal constitution interests in concerns more than the problem itself, it cares for Turkey not to remain in hands of censorship, and uncomfortable with the incapability of government handling the issue. For the moment, major aim of all groups who want youtube.com not to be banned is not more than the will of diverging from a censorious society. Besides, all forces of Turkish community owns an indisputable integrity about the removal of those visuals containing insults and disrespect to Ataturk, and demands esteem on our culture and merits.Turkish culture, though it molded its matriahal basics through tolerance, is committed deeply to their values which are protected from past to present and endowed with high pride and figure to serve them even if it worth their lives. Although this approach of Turks is seem paradoxical in many other cultures including European culture,it is the main speciality that makes Turkish people distinct in the world.
To this reason, no matter how it is told, in order to remove this problem, primarily youtube.com has to show respect to Turkey’s culture and values. People who sees this problem just as a legal subject or as a censorship law can only solve it for short term. Youtube, like many other international firms operating in Turkey, has to be respectful not only to our laws but also to our viewpoints. In this matter, Google groups should take companies operating for long time in Turkey such as Microsoft as an example. Yet, though similar problems are lived with facebook, the solution come easily alongwith the communication skills of Microsoft.

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Ranking is becoming a big problem for Google http://atifunaldi.com/2008/10/10/ranking-is-becoming-a-big-problem-for-google/ http://atifunaldi.com/2008/10/10/ranking-is-becoming-a-big-problem-for-google/#comments Fri, 10 Oct 2008 11:13:13 +0000 atifunaldi http://atifunaldi.wordpress.com/?p=85 ]]>

Alexa, webtrends, google analytics. The measurement and the degree of trust of websites, is becoming a problem for all the web for years. Google’s CEO is also have some problems about it.

Google’s Schmidt Says Internet ‘Cesspool’ Needs Brands

Says the Solution Is Quality Content; Tells Publishers and Editors to ‘Increase Your Relevance’
The internet is fast becoming a “cesspool” where false information thrives, Google CEO Eric Schmidt said yesterday. Speaking with an audience of magazine executives visiting the Google campus here as part of their annual industry conference, he said their brands were increasingly important signals that content can be trusted.

“Brands are the solution, not the problem,” Mr. Schmidt said. “Brands are how you sort out the cesspool.”
Google CEO Eric Schmidt: ‘We don’t do content. You all create content.’
Welcome words
Those were welcome words for the editors and publishers who have been watching the internet draw more and more ad spending every year. Mr. Schmidt took aim, however, at the Association of National Advertisers for opposing Google’s planned ad deal with Yahoo. The association has said the deal will diminish competition and help Google and Yahoo increase ad prices.

“If you’re going to criticize us, criticize us correctly,” Mr. Schmidt said. “We’re guilty of many things, but that’s not one of them.”

In a talk that he structured mostly as an invitation for questions and ideas, Mr. Schmidt declined to advise magazines on looking more popular to Google’s page-ranking programs.

“We don’t actually want you to be successful,” he said. The company’s algorithms are trying to find the most relevant search results, after all, not the sites that best game the system. “The fundamental way to increase your rank is to increase your relevance,” he added.

On the subject of print, especially newspapers as we have known them, Mr. Schmidt was decidedly gloomy. “The evidence is not good,” he said, guessing that the print business will eventually comprise a smaller piece of publishers’ much larger online businesses.

A ‘natural partnership’
That said, magazines and other professional content creators are essential for Google’s efforts to help people find desirable content, he explained. “We don’t do content,” he said. “You all create content. It’s a natural partnership.”

But when asked where the industry ends up if there aren’t outlets willing to pay journalists to create quality content, Mr. Schmidt was a bit Palin-esque, saying that he didn’t have an answer but one thing to look at is whether journalism should be a for-profit enterprise.

The future of quality editorial is, moreover, hardly certain. “It’s a huge question in the world,” Mr. Schmidt said, “particularly in the United States.”

Branding, on the other hand, may be an essential element that helps people navigate the world, he said. “Brand affinity is clearly hard wired,” he said. “It is so fundamental to human existence that it’s not going away. It must have a genetic component.”

His talk came as part of a broader program organized for the magazine executives by Google. Eileen Naughton, Google’s director of media platforms, spoke first — greeting many people she knew from her years as a magazine executive. She joined Google after Time Inc. eliminated 105 jobs, including hers, to cut costs in December 2005. Attendees also listened to tutorials from Twitter’s chairman-chief product officer, Evan James; YouTube’s head of client solutions and ad programs, Jamie Byrne; and RockYou’s CEO and founder, Lance Tokuda.

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New technology trends on 2009 http://atifunaldi.com/2008/10/06/new-technology-trends-on-2009/ http://atifunaldi.com/2008/10/06/new-technology-trends-on-2009/#comments Mon, 06 Oct 2008 13:55:00 +0000 atifunaldi http://atifunaldi.wordpress.com/?p=79 ]]>

Web era will change its way on 2009. You can  find  new technology trends below.

Veeple video-inserted ads
So, how much did Google pay for YouTube? $1.65 billion. And how much revenue comes in from all those YouTube videos? Um, it’s pretty safe to assume no numbers starting with a “b.” Plus, all those videos don’t have an ounce of interactivity within their digital bits. So how do companies capitalize on the video craze? Companies like Hulu have experimented with pre-roll ads with some success, but online advertisers need a better way of turning the passive video-watching experience into a possible revenue giant for brands.

Enter Veeple. The company claims its new technology allows users to imbed any type of content into static videos, spicing them up with text overlays, captions, thought bubbles, and, most importantly for advertisers, web links. These “spots,” as the company refers to them, are simply dropped on top of a video, and can even follow an element — like a person, a poster, a DVD — in the video if it moves.

“The idea of pop-up ads, and banner ads and pre-rolls, where all the money is being spent today, is not where all the money will be spent tomorrow,” Veeple CEO and co-founder Scott Bloomberg said. “The in-stream model, over time, will be the more interesting one for advertisers.”

Veeple just launched version 2 of its software platform at TechCrunch50, adding a number of new features, and it should be available commercially soon. Developers can program in “one-click, two-click” interfaces, bringing up info screens on the video before clicking off to the next website, and even send content to mobile devices.

Any sort of logo or link (like all the social networks) can be embedded, as can audio and separate video files. The service will also include a pencil tool, allowing developers to sketch a transparent spot of any size and shape. As for performance tracking, Veeple is launching its analytics service, giving advertisers all the expected stats, including which spots are performing well and which aren’t.

In the demo I saw, the process looked simple: upload a video onto their site, and then start adding the spots. In a way, it feels like a social application — a way of personalizing videos like the old “pop-up video” of our VH1 past.

The question is whether users will respond to spots in the way they responded to pop-up ads. But overall, Veeple has the potential to create a more seamless watching experience for online videos than with pre-roll ads, while producing more possibilities for advertisers.Super banner ads from Analog Analytics
As Sean X Cummings so frequently reminds us, consumers — you, me and everyone else — pretty much feel unambiguous hatred toward banner ads. Not quite reaching the level of loathing reserved for pop-up ads and, ahem, Windows Vista, banner ads are one of the scourges of browsing, prompting many users to go to great lengths to block them.

So, how do we make the banner ad effective again? Advertisers have been experimenting plenty over the last few years, and the folks at Analog Analytics feel they’ve struck some sort of gold with their Super Banner Ads, which combine interactive marketing with direct response, offering users an immediate value when they engage the banner.

“The Super Banner Ad is a traditional banner, but we attached a coupon or promotional offer to it,” Ken Kalb, CEO and president of Analog Analytics, said, adding that the real key to these banners is their dynamic functions. “We figured out how to combine an offering that would change rapidly over time as a function of the conversion rate.”

Coming in two flavors — coupon for retail and coupon for call centers — these banners ask users to input their information, including name, email and telephone, and then immediately delivers an e-coupon to that mobile device that users can redeem at a nearby retail store.

But if users aren’t reacting to the banner along set goals, advertisers can have the coupon automatically increase (or decrease) along preset levels of value. Say you’re advertising flowers before Mother’s Day and offering a $10 off coupon. Nobody’s is going for it, so the banners automatically add free shipping, without changing the creative element of the ad. Suddenly your conversion rate jumps. Mothers get flowers. Your brand smiles. That’s the idea, at least.

The second part of the Super Banner Ad is to bridge people with the analog world, instantaneously connecting them to a call center. While not necessary for all brands (”Hello, this is Coke.” “Good… And how are you today?”), a travel company or a pizza brand might find this very useful in converting that coupon into a real-world sale.

When I tried their demo, it was quick, taking about 10 seconds to get the text; it comes in standard text message, but the company will also allow email coupons. No clipping, no scissors, no paper waste — just an immediate return of monetary value. As an easy way of giving users value, the Super Banner Ads have a lot of potential, if they can get people to stop ignoring banners in general.

Now, getting the 7/11 guy to believe I actually have a coupon on my phone — that’s a whole different story.1020 Placecast’s geo-targeting ad network
We can safety rely on the fact that position-target advertising on mobile devices is a big part of the future. As unsettling as this prospect is to Big Brother-fearing types, these GPS-laden devices open up huge new opportunities for advertisers and, according to a few online creative marketing pros I spoke with, everyone is now looking to include the ultimate iPhone app as a part of their new advertising platform.

It makes sense, of course. Brands want their products to reach out to the people most likely to use them, and those people just might be the consumers walking down the street right now.

Lo and behold, 1020 Placecast is here — a geo-targeting ad network that just inked an agreement with online events tracker Eventful to deliver location-based ads to the iPhone.

The clever idea is this: A young consumer, 18-35, is driving down Sunset Boulevard in Los Angeles, and she checks her iPhone for nearby concerts using, say, Eventful. She not only sees that Death Cab for Cutie is playing down the street at the Viper Room but also sees an ad for a nearby Burger King where she can grab a bite to eat beforehand. That ad, delivered by 1020 Placecast, may not yet consider her dietary habits (she’s clearly vegan) in its geographically targeted advertising (just give them time), yet the customer has just received relevant advertising while on the road from information provided by the GPS chip in her phone. That’s pretty cool.

“People have been talking about location-based advertising for years, and we are the first ones to be capable of actually doing it,” Anne Bezancon, founder and president of 1020 Placecast, said at the product’s launch at ad:tech in May. She assures users, however, that this won’t be a hit against privacy. “We do not need any personally identifiable information to target our ads based on place.”

Not reserved for mobile devices like the iPhone, the ad network also operates over broadband and Wi-Fi. To deliver its ads, the company defines “place” as more than just location, taking into account things like store locations, time of day, and demographic information. It culls location information from service providers, consumer-entered data, GPS, Wi-Fi hotspot locations and cell ID.

This is all a little experimental still, but the idea of getting useful ads on a mobile device rather than just more spam is an intriguing one, for both advertisers and consumers. With a good iPhone partner like Eventful, 1020 Placecast has a chance to establish a formidable footprint on this new online advertising space.

The rest

The technologies above are only a few of the many that could break into the mainstream. In the last few weeks there has been a veritable deluge of news in the online advertising world, with hundreds of new companies making their own splash in the giant Web 2.0 pond at TechCrunch50 and DEMOfall08. Here are a few others that just might be worth following:

Seesmic’s slug-line – the video twitter – is certainly catchy, and the video platform pretty much works the way it’s advertised: as a way to carry out video conversations with users all over the globe. Started by French entrepreneur Loic Le Meu, Seesmic could be interesting for brands in the future, but it currently feels like a community in flux. Still, Seesmic is certainly worth watching. 

Like Analog Analytics feels about banners, AdRocket believes the email ad just isn’t quite dead yet. Its founders might have a point, with billions of emails sent every year from companies to subscribers. AdRocket is trying to make the ads within those emails — and they are text ads because images are blocked in most email clients these days — more useful and relevant to the actual customer receiving them. AdRocket targets its ads for publishers using non-personal information gathered from registration, browsing habits, cookies, and other means. So, the email ad is evolving.

AlfaBetic is the one of the coolest ideas in a long time. Launching at TechCrunch, this translation service/ad network is betting it can be cheaper and better at translating the world’s domains than competing companies, a.k.a. Google. The idea is to be able to translate blogs, websites, ads, even comments into 10 of the world’s most popular online languages via software, which is checked by a team of proofreaders worldwide and published on alternate language sites for the brand. This means a comment posted on Yahoo Russia will show up in English on Yahoo U.S. Most importantly, AlfaBetic doesn’t charge for the translation service — instead, it gets paid through its local ad network throughout the world.

While all these companies caught my eye, what technologies are you watching out there? Will you share with us, or is it too top secret?

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40th day from the court blocks Youtube http://atifunaldi.com/2008/06/15/40th-day-from-the-court-blocks-youtube/ http://atifunaldi.com/2008/06/15/40th-day-from-the-court-blocks-youtube/#comments Sun, 15 Jun 2008 16:46:10 +0000 atifunaldi http://atifunaldi.wordpress.com/?p=17 ]]>

In Turkey; 40th day after a death is remembrance day. Youtube was blocked by the court 40 days before today. Unfortunately this banning is occurred in a country of last centuries visionary leader Ataturk founded.

YouTube blocked for more than a month is an “unacceptable” act of censorship
The blocking of access to the video-sharing website YouTube in Turkey since 5 May as a result of orders issued by three Ankara magistrate courts is “unacceptable,” Reporters Without Borders said today
“YouTube is not the only file-sharing site that is blocked in Turkey,” Reporters Without Borders said. “Official decisions of this kind to censor the Internet constitute serious violations of freedom of expression and information. Turkish Internet users can no longer share their videos with the outside world or view other people’s videos. We reiterate our appeal to the authorities to act judiciously by asking YouTube to remove the offending videos. Blocking the entire site is unacceptable.”
An Ankara magistrate court issued orders on 24 and 30 April for the blocking of YouTube without giving its grounds for these decisions. Another Ankara magistrate court issued a similar order on 5 May.
YouTube representatives have said the website’s editors have taken the necessary steps to withdraw the offending videos that appear to have prompted these decisions.
The photo-sharing website Slide has been inaccessible since 25 March as a result of a court’s decision in Çivril (southwest of Ankara) that was prompted by “photos and articles considered insulting to Atatürk.” Google Groups, Google’s discussion site, has been inaccessible since 10 April as a result of an action brought by religious leader Adnan Oktar claiming he was defamed in comments posted on the site.
Law 5651 on “the organisation of online publications and combatting offences committed by means of such publications,” in force since November 2007, enables prosecutors to block access to websites within 24 hours if their content is deemed liable to incite suicide, pedophilia, drug usage, obscenity or prostitution or violate a law forbidding any attacks on the memory of the Turkish republic’s founder, Atatürk.

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