iPhone application invasion in Turkey

There have been many major application releases in Turkey recently; mostly from the carriers and media companies. With the recent introduction of 3G to the market and marketing muscle of carriers for data consumption on high-end phones; Turkey is quickly ramping up to the position it was supposed to be in a -mature mobile market- world. Here are some recent numbers from the the leading operator of the market;

Turkcell has sold about 200,000 VINN modems and netbooks since it introduced 3G

on July 30th 2009

• The number of people in Turkey who have transitioned to 3G since July 30th is more

than 4 million

• There are about 2 million active 3G users in Turkey

• The number of Turkcell subscribers who have used Turkcell’s video service has

reached 1 million

• About 72% of Turkcell’s total data traffic takes place within the 3G network

• 93% of VINN modem users prefer 4GB packages and 78% of VINN subscribers use

Turkcell 3G for their broadband Internet needs

I found opportunity to review those recent apps and all I can say is they are already ahead of the curve in many fundamental aspects such as; speed, usability and stability. Vodafone's app is basically a follower to Turkcell's traffic app for Istanbul. But "support for all operators" is a thumbs-up for it. Turkcell's new app Pusula aims to meet all "local" needs of its subscribers with a cool AR support. CNN Turk's app is my favorite, which provides almost all the news-related content in a very intuitive form, including live stream. And ATV's application is a live-stream app as well, which runs pretty smoothly so far. Since I don't use my iPhone's phone function anymore, thanks to all those apps, it is my mobile multimedia device from now on.

We all know that Turkey is still an attractive market for Internet just because it is not very mature yet and Internet penetration is still relatively low and growing fast. But what I believe is the potential for mobile Internet is way bigger mostly because we were that late on 3G launch. There are many new value propositions that digital agencies can provide to meet their clients' short and medium term mobile needs, starting with basics; mobile presence.

a pizza story

everything started with a whisper to google voice search... and it all only took 7 minutes... congrats Domino's for building such a mobile friendly site which is extremely easy to navigate through and also delivering till midnight!

World's Best CEO 2009 award goes to Turkcell's Sureyya Ciliv

Turkcell was my first employer after graduation and I was thrilled with the energy of that world-class team. On a period of increasing local competition, Turkcell continued to differentiate itself by investing at new businesses and technologies. Tone&Win one of the products I've also worked for at mobile marketing team was a real risk but also a unique approach to push innovation envelope particularly at mobile advertising. Today I've learned that Turkcell's CEO has received the WCA 2009 award and was shown as the best CEO of 2009. And early this year Turkcell was listed in Infotech 100 list with its exceptional performance during global recession. I do believe that "taking no risk" is the real risk that companies should avoid to take in that era and am very happy to see such successful risk-takers from my country. Congrats Turkcell and thanks for your significant contribution to mobile space !

Navigation meets Cloud

Google has just announced its approach to navigation, an Internet-connected GPS navigation system. Have a look at it. And yes, it is free!

Else Will Follow

"Focusing on user" is a very widely used statement by many companies, but I honestly can say that it really is a very fundamental piece of Google culture. I believe, companies running in the industries at which success levels are purely based end-user acceptance, should listen their users more than anything else. And Internet is such a unique platform for managing that effectively at a massive and statistically meaningful scale. One thing to note though is listening users matters as long as you value every single idea regardless of how similar it is to your own ideas.

Here is an example; Google Product Ideas. You can share your ideas about various products here or vote on others'. And they really do matter. If you want take part in that, give it a try by checking the ideas about mobile! And yes, if you want to interact with your audience in a similar way, Moderator is a very easy and effective way to do that.

Thanks Digital Age!

Digital Age, a monthly magazine in Turkey which mainly covers digital information technologies, new life styles and new businesses models; has shown me among 50 people that should be followed on Twitter in Turkey citing my feeds related to the mobile space. Thanks Digital Age!

Mobile as Your Primary Screen

Mobile phones are always named as the third screen after TV and computers. And actually those statements are usually made and considered as a compliment for mobile. I believe we're getting very close to an age where the ranking will be upside-down. One of things that I've noticed during a recent concert was that; a very significant number of people were actually watching the performance through the screens of their phones or cameras . There are many social motivators behind recording/sharing every moment we live but the fact is that even live video broadcasting is now just a matter of good internet connection and a high end phone.

Management as a TV Set

Management is obviously not a science but rather a discipline. Planning, organizing, controlling, motivating and staffing are some main functions of that discipline and are widely applied by most of the organizations around the world. What is so surprising to me is the similarity among the ways that those functions are working in totally different organizations . Why do almost all businesses reward their employees with bonuses? Why do the employees in all industries have almost same vacation allowances? Why should everyone follow a direction from "managed" to "managing" roles on their career paths? Why should all people have a path anyway?
Some of those can still be "right" for many businsses but I strongly believe just copying the techniques and applying them in extremely different organizations really does not make any sense.
I totally agree with Dank Pink's statement on his TED talk: "At 20th century we came up with this idea of "management" , it is not a tree but it is a television set, somebody invented it and it doesn't mean it is going to work forever" .

etohum strikes back!

etohum is a platform of which main goal is to bring young entrepreneurs and potential investors together in Turkey. It was found by Burak Büyükdemir, a teacher of mine from ITU, and backed by a very experienced and talented group of people who might be considered as the idea leaders of the industry. I believe they had a very successful run last year, and now; starting today, etohum is inviting its second year candidates. Considering the recent 3G launch and its hype, I am expecting to see at least a few very promising mobile ideas this year.

Killer App for Your Appetite

"Being connected" on the go is usually a significant advantage in many cases and ordering food is one of those. Considering my experiences, I'd say that; the time period from work to home, is probably the one I make most of my food-related decisions. Pizza Hut has recently launched it mobile app for iPhone to address that need and TC reports that they already had ~100K downloads in just 2 weeks, which can obviously be considered as an impressive take off.

It is not secret that, many brands used to establish their mobile presence (as they did for their web presence a decade ago) for mostly branding purposes which is meanly led by the first-mover motivation. Many advertisers still do not actually measure their ROI from any of those efforts and they just assume that it will bring them long-term value. That actually might be the right motivation for experimenting, definitely better then just waiting the optimum conditions.

I don't have any insights on the cost for building such an application to Pizza Hut, but if you just make some rough calculations with pessimistic assumptions; you'd see that there really is a direct, profitable and scalable sales channel here. I believe it won't take as much time for advertisers to focus more on ROI at mobile platforms as it did at their web efforts.