Matt Marshall (Venture Beat) Last week, I visited Turkey, and discovered what a lot of people are saying about this fascinating country: It’s the next developing hotspot for technology startups, especially for e-commerce. The sector is exploding: The Turkish e-commerce market hit $10.6 billion in the first six months of the year, compared to $16.3 billion for all of 2010. And after years of neglecting Turkey, U.S and other investors are now starting to flock there. Investment capital isn’t gushing full-bore yet, as investors assess this still-emerging market. But 2011 is the year when the spigot was first turned on.
Comodo, a leading Internet security provider, is spotlighting an unprecedented user response reported by a social media analytics firm as further evidence that "real world" reviews are an increasingly valuable source of information for consumers comparing Internet security solutions. Last week Amplicate, a social media analytics service that tracks more than 170 million opinions from more than 33 million social media users, reported "tens of thousands" of users had responded to Comodo's recent social media outreach, helping to increase the company's "positive rating" from 56 percent to 96 percent in the space of a single day.
Azerbaijani and Turkish diaspora organizations in the United States have launched a campaign to prevent a local NGO from making an unauthorized trip to Karabakh. The US-based Azerbaijani-American Council (AAC) and the Pax Turcica Institute have organized an action letter campaign (PTI) in protest of the recent discovery of a planned unauthorized visit to Karabakh by the World Affairs Council (WAC) of Houston, Texas, a US-based NGO.
Delivering a speech on talks, ASO Chairman Nurettin Ozdebir said that Turkey's imports from the United States had been 12.3 billion U.S. dollars and exports to the U.S. had been 3.8 billion USD in the last year. U.S. Assistant Secretary of Commerce Michael Camunez and accompanying delegation had a meeting with businessmen at Ankara Chamber of Industry (ASO) in Ankara on Monday, discussing renewable energy and energy productivity.
