FriendFeed became a remedy for our discomfort for a while. Because we got a chance to have a talk with new people instead of those that we got bored to talk with so far and that already consumed many common grounds we might share. This became a sea for us as we were in aquarium when we got out of the close circuit system of Facebook. Interesting shares of FriendFeed bewitched us in a short time and we got cool friends. Facebook, naturally, saw the big picture and bought FriendFeed. Probably, it did not want to have a strong rival. However, FriendFeed got out of hand soon. Fights and argues seized everywhere and it became a platform with low quality of chat even you wanted to avoid from such argues.

Actually, the most significant problem of social networks is their uncontrolled environments. As a result, users hiding behind anonymous identities created disturbance and social unrest. These people ruined social networks nothing less than provokers who ruin streets by hiding their faces with masks. Since they are not intervened unless ‘user generated content’ is not complained as a requirement for Web 2.0, the easement of anonymous identity made things out of control.

At this point, we meet with the question, “What do we expect from a social network?” Even though it is introduced to us that meeting with new people, making shares with them and adding value into our lives are the primary purposes of a social network, unfortunately current services being used popularly are far from these purposes. Many people use these networks either as a dating website or as a self-satisfaction tool by attacking other users in order to get their revenge on issues they could not express in real life. Well, are social networks really not useful?

We came across with studentSN as one of the most important approaches for developing a social network of high quality which notices all these disadvantages early. As it can be understood by its name, studentSN aims to change the lives of its users by bringing “high quality network” concept into prominence. This concept is so important insomuch that studentSN received an investment about 500.000 $ initially and there is no need to be an oracle to predict that it will receive more investments. studentSN already has had many users now and it is candidate to be a phenomenon in a short time.

studentSN has achieved to create a system of high quality with an easy interface and a substructure working really fast. The system supports English, German and Turkish languages and it is obvious that it is planning to grow locally even it is a global project. It is also seen that its directors have a vision since they integrated Facebook Connect into their website rather than taking Facebook as an opponent.

There is no need to emphasize its features such as status updating, private messaging, gift sending, creating photograph gallery, establishing groups and other activities related with groups since they are same with other social networks. When you log in, it is easy to figure out the website’s features.

It should not be thought that the scope will be very limited as studentSN is for students; because students are very crowded also in other social networks. What can other social networks offer to this huge mass as long as they consider these users as Internet users regardless of their status of “being students”?

We all know that parents buy computers for “making their children to study in a better way.” But are these parents wrong when they get angry with their children when they change their relationship status in Facebook many times in a day, when they are exposed to abusive language or when they laugh slobberingly as watching useless videos? All parents notice that they can not discipline their children by limiting computer usage. So, what is the solution?

On the other hand, university students become anti-social people gradually. Facebook is incapable of making students to meet and drink a coffee together even in the same department not in the same campus… It is very sad to see that students who study in the same department spend their time by having unnecessary tests and hitting “like” button for videos shared by other people even though all of them have Facebook without being unaware of each other.

I remember that there was warm café environment in 90s in small towns. People were meeting with and having new friends in these cafés. After the millennium, such environments disappeared gradually and people were stucked in small rooms in front of pc monitors. However, it is simply “insanity” to expect people to have a successful business life who could not manage to have proper social relationships at younger ages! Nowadays, your personal network is also essential as well as your success in your business.

It is impossible to appreciate studentSN due to its solutions against all disadvantages we mentioned above. First and foremost, the system does not allow user to register with an anonymous identity. Thus, the quality appears in this first step. Each activity within the website is under the control of administrators and thus, contents generated by users seem professional for that reason.

Meeting with new people is not the only feature offered by studentSN; its Document Store provides access to various homework sources for students. While there are free sources in this document library, some other life-saving documents are offered for a small fee.

I want to mention the income model created by studentSN at this point, however selling content to user is not a new application. The significant point here is the “collection method” created by studentSN. The collection method which is a problematic issue of all websites offering paid services over Internet for Turkish market is solved by the agreement made between studentSN and PTT (Turkish Mail Delivery) which has the widest sale network in Turkey. It is possible to purchase paid services offered in the website by using top up cards sold in PTT offices.

As a civil society initiative, studentSN announced that they will donate the income of first 1000 cards to be sold to the Society for the Protection of Children after cards are placed on the market. This initiative motivates users that will purchase cards for the first time to visit the closest PTT office and such a donation to a society which needs the most help wins general approval.

studentSN is aware of SMS usage frequency of students and it has a good SMS system – which will though draw away some users since it is a paid service. By means of this system, you can send SMS to any mobile number you desire and also studentSN allows user to download mobile games over the website as accepting that the most important clients of mobile game market are students.

These top up cards are not the sole payment method. Paypal and Turkcell Mobile Payment solutions can deposit credit to your account and also you can transfer credit to other users in your net. Even though the last option seems open for abusing, it may be really necessary from time to time.

What can be done in the future?

Even though studentSN that built its income model over selling paid services to its own users has a well-working system, it is at the bottom of the ladder yet and has a long way to go.

Although document center currently enables students to do their homeworks, it is impossible for such a system to be out of examination market. Especially in Turkey, education system is based on examinations. While high school students deal with ÖSS (Student Selection Examination), college students deal with DGS (Vertical Transfer Examination) and university graduates deal with KPSS (Public Personnel Selection Examination). studentSN becomes a virtual training center soon after. High-class and original online examinations can be sold over the website by agreements to be made with content producers. I don’t even want to guess the income to be created by this way.

Another feature which is not available on the website but that expect it to be added soon is guidance and career consultance pages. The most significant problem of students is being undecided about your future; thus, individual ability tests to be had by students and/or questions to be asked by career specialists will increase the devotion of students to the website.

It surprised me to see that there is no serious introduction page for universities in such a website even though they all have official groups in the website. If they have their own portals within the website, both ÖSS candidates can get detailed information about these universities and also they can meet with current students of universities. I am sure that the administrators are aware of this situation but I think they should put their skates on. It is not hard to imagine how much Foundation Universities will show interest in the website (which addresses to much students even though the website does not expect commercials as an income model) during ÖSS choice period.

Even classical Internet commercials are not in question, new incomes can be obtained by advertorials and/or by means of particular sponsorships. studentSN is a sharp old bird for Foundation Universities.

Certifications have become one of the most essential components of business life today. Thus, introducing certificates in detail that “may change” lives of students in the website will help students to plan their career journeys.

One of the most important features that may be added to studentSN will be online training programs. By selling shortdated courses over the website which especially enables to have distance education may both increase user devotion and create “great difference” in their lives.

When social media is called, the first thing that comes to mind is content generated and shared by users. After Internet became an information dump, people who want to spend their time effectively preferred to share only contents that are useful according to them in order to prevent other people to waste also their time.

Since it helps us to decide which ones are useful among millions of image, video, music, news and blog inputs, social media grew incredibly fast and continues to grow in every passing second.

Another issue that makes social media so important is certainly being the most effective tool we have ever met for making friends. 21^st century became a period that individuals turned in on themselves and families fell apart quickly. Since people were deprived of communication and transportation facilities before, they could only communicate with other people in a narrow geographical area. Thus, it was necessitating close friendship and kinship bonds.

However, social media has the power to enable you to meet many people around the world that you have a common point with them. As long as individuals meet with new people and share everything with them, social media became an “addiction” soon.

It is the subject of other articles to explain how effectively social media is used or whether it is really used for serving its purpose. Yet, we can say that the social media is a communication revolution not only in Internet but also in the world we have not met yet.

Well, how did this entire story begin? Actually, the basic of social media began with BBS (Bulletin Board Systems) which was the first product of the desire of people for meeting and communicating with each other by computer. Even before real-time chat systems, people were sharing by means of BBS. Even though it was not a widespread system in Turkey, we know that many people in other countries were sharing over BBS.

Real communication over computer began by IRC (Internet Relay Chat) in Turkey.

IRC, ICQ, and Instant Messaging Software

IRC was begun to be used in 1988 and became widespread in Turkey by means of a script called mIRC. Having ‘@’ or ‘+’ authorities in an IRC server was accepted as an ultimate level in personal growth. In other words, people loved to chat with the confident and comfort by hiding behind anonymous identities. So much so that, Internet Cafés opened everwhere were just meeting this chatting needs of people. Many Turkish adolescents were spending their time in Internet for chatting instead of accessing information.

Soon after, people bored to spend time by chatting with people by anonymous identities that they had no chance to meet again easily. In the middle of 90s, a new era was established by means of the instant messaging software called ICQ (I seek you).

In the instant messaging process started with ICQ, people began to give their ICQ numbers to each other as if it was their phone numbers for chatting over ICQ. This software also had features to search by particular criteria such as name, online/offline status or location (for example, female members between 18-23 y/o living in Istanbul etc.) in order to meet new people.

Since ICQ was not easy to use (it was working very slowly) and there was no support behind the software, MSN Messenger became popular in 2003.

MSN Messenger is known by all Internet users as an Instant Messaging Software with its high usage rate today (in fact, we can say that it has no serious rival). It is accepted as the essential software for Internet users by its success in easy image and file share and visual and audible communication developed especially in recent versions. It seems that there is no application that will be a critical nominee for being the most popular instead of MSN Messenger in near future.

Even though it is a successful application, we can not say that it is so successful for enabling people to meet with new people. Due to its nature, you should know the MSN address of an individual and to be accepted by opposite party to begin chatting with him/her. Thus, people use MSN Messenger to contact with people they already know.

Society Websites

Emotional (mostly hormonal) reasons have important roles in the origin of meeting with new people, let’s face it. People pine for having new girlfriends/boyfriends since IRC. People getting married by means of IRC and ICQ became materials for printed media. It is also same for MSN. However, such software is quite far from enabling you to meet with people with characteristics you want.

Thus, social media was founded on society websites (which were mostly established for commercial purposes). When Mark Zuckenberg said that they established Facebook for “picking up girls”, media exaggerated this statement; however, almost all social constitutions in Internet are founded unfortunately on “picking up new girlfriend/boyfriend”.

Internet entrepreneurs noticing this intention made initiatives successively in order provide people to meet with new people with characteristics they want. The first successful example in Turkey was SiberAlem. Unfortunately Siberalem could not maintain its success and Yonja got the leadership in the market which was established in 2004.

Yonja followed a different way unlike the ways followed by other dating websites until that day and created a social media environment in real terms in Turkey by focusing on real friendships as well as “picking new girlfriends/boyfriends”. The website was up for being a global project with its English interface together with Turkish one; however things did not go as they planned. As Facebook made a name for itself, Yonja lost its popularity and was sold for 15 millon dollar to Mynet in 2007. By losing its popularity much more due to both wrong strategies after the purchase and the sudden increase of Facebook, there is a shadow of its former self today. It is so stalemated today that it uses even Facebook Connect. It means that Yonja simply accepted “the defeat”.

After Yonja lost its leadership, istanbul.net established as the first local dating website managed to succeed by its decent management, successful promotion campaigns and user-friendly interface and maintains its market domination despite the hegemony of Facebook. Although the service administrated and developed by Magnet displayed local growth under various domain names such as ankara.net, izmir.net and bursa.net, it is known that these additional websites do not have great influences since İstanbul is an attraction center of Turkey.

First Steps of Social Media and Their Reflections in Turkey

Even though myspace established in 2003 provided first steps of social media by creating a great impact in the USA, it is still a distant and cold network for Turkey. Meeting with social network in Turkey was only occurred by the sudden increase of Facebook in 2006.

Facebook started out by promising you to find everybody you knew in the past but not staying in touch anymore. Like Yonja, it was also aiming to provide dating without giving it prominence and its dominance over its all rivals was being a service totally free. By allowing people to find new girlfriends/boyfriends as well as to establish new friendships and to share contents over a simple interface, Facebook managed to change the world by allowing everybody to generate content easily.

Today, millions of people who do not have any idea about web share their favourite sings, videos, news or articles easily by means of Facebook; in other words, they generate new contents and they do not have any difficulty in it. This is why the increase of Facebook can not be stopped. At first, everyone was arguing the privacy issue by asking “who want to share his/her private life with the whole world?” Now we know that people take photos only to publish in Facebook. With all these features, Facebook forms the basis of social media in Turkey even it is not in the world and it increases its market domination day by day.

Another feature of Facebook that makes it so powerful is enabling 3^rd parties or individual developers to develop applications working on Facebook by means of API structure of the website. Thus, Facebook aims its users to generate not only contents but also software that will ensure users to spend more time in the website.

A short note to see how powerful course is Facebook: It is expected that active user numbers of the website to reach 1 billion which is 300 million today.

YouTube

While Facebook was encouraging people to meet with new people by making their cases with their pasts and personalities, YouTube initiated a visual broadcasting period.

Before YouTube, broadcasting was a hard work monopolized by television channels and it was never crossed by ordinary people. By simple interface of YouTube like Facebook, people shared their videos with the entire world just by a few clicks. This was so brilliant idea that everybody rushed into YouTube as if they were waiting for it for centuries and as a result, YouTube was purchased by Google for a huge amount 1.6 billion dollar) in a short time.

The idea and vision of YouTube was so effective that many clones were established. None of them, neither Google Video nor another one, did not even come close to the success of YouTube. Two video projects that can be taken as serious appeared in Turkey. One of them is İzlesene made by NOKTA A.Ş. and other one is Timsah made by Magnet. Even though both of them are very successful projects, YouTube still in the first place in Turkey. In fact, high hits of these two local applications are caused by the access restriction of YouTube in Turkey. When this restriction is removed, both local applications may hard up.

YouTube managed to create so different user loyalty that Turkish visitors learnt everything about proxy and how to make DNS configurations since the access to the website is restricted in Turkey by the decision of Telecommunication Association.  The success of YouTube is of course caused by being the first one and the technical support which is almost infinite.

YouTube was used as a great propaganda tool in American Presidency Elections performed in 2008 even though it is not being used for such purposes in Turkey yet. The video for “Yes, We Can” campaign which brought presidency to Obama was watched for over 14 million times on YouTube.

YouTube growing and getting strong maintains its domination in the video market though it is restricted to access in Turkey. It is also not expected that any application would supersede YouTube in the near future.

Flickr

Video was not the only thing that people wanted to share. It is clear that people had photographs more than videos. Stock photography websites were commercial applications which were aiming to sell photographs taken and retouched by professional photographers and Flickr filled the deficiency of a tool enabling end users to share their own photographs with the entire world freely.

Flickr allowing everyone to share their photographs and to access these shared photographs achieved such a great success that there are approximately 4 billions of photographs in it. This is currently the widest photograph archive in the world.

Flickr is almost unrivalled in the market as a social media application ensuring people to meet with each other by means groups. There is no need to be an oracle to predict that it has great opportunities to grow more by means of the support of Yahoo behind it.

Source: This article was based on The History and Evolution of Social Media published in Webdesigner Depot.

This is a kind of news which will not surprise us even at first we hear it. YouthRep wanted to have a support at online by making a purchase in a field that is appropriate for them and this choice certainly will provide great benefit to them.

The actual surprising point in the news is a speculation arising due to the fact that public opinion was not informed about the amounts in this purchase as in all purchasing news.

How does a web application increase in value?

Nobody is asking this question, in fact. Rather than that, everybody prefers to ask “why was such amount paid?” Since the amount defined as “such” is not definite, there is something for everyone to be talking all at once.

Discussions focus on the article of Arda Kutsal published in Webrazzi which gave the news first.

“According to my personal opinion and estimations, we remember that there was about 8.000 TL – 12.000 TL monthly advertisement incomes in 2008 as to the information given by our sources for OrtaKantin.com. We learnt from an important source that current advertisement income is about 20.000 TL – 24.000 TL monthly. In this case, we can consider that its value may reach approximately 700.000 – 800.000 TL for the whole service.”

Even though Arda Kutsal implies that “this is my personal opinion and estimation”, giving measurable amounts is quite thought-provoking. How can guessing be true or which criteria are taken as a base for this estimation unless amounts are expressed by officially as we met before?

Before anything else, it is impossible to have advertisement income about monthly 24.000 TL by a website that we can call as “small” with less than daily 10.000 single hits. We are sure about it and Arda Kutsal knows it at least as we know. Since there is no other income model of the website – as Arda Kutsal already mentioned that the amounts are advertisement income –, how such income is obtained?

Even those said by Arda Kutsal are remarkable since he is a reliable writer, non-existence of any reference except those “heard by him” about these incomes both strengthens speculations and also harms the decent position of Arda Kutsal in the market that he obtained for long years. In my opinion, even if he is just guessing, he should base his estimations on “an objective source” or he should not make any estimation.

The second problem is how a service with about 91.000 members can reach the assessment about 700.000 TL – 800.000 TL. The real point here is the explicit income amount actually.

Although an income about monthly 20.000 TL is mentioned, it is confusing that no expense is expressed. Is it expense-free net profit or total income? If it is net profit, then the service can has a value of 800.000 TL. However, another issue that should not be forgotten is the balance of income. Can OrtaKantin reach these amounts every month of year or does it decrease to lower levels at about 5 months of year in which university students are inactive?

Second choice makes sense to me. In this case, calculating annual income as 288.000 TL since ortakantin earns 24.000 TL in some months is quite “beadledom”. As a matter of fact, nobody sells a service with these annual incomes for 3 years’ income.

Either the assessment predicted by Arda Kutsal is wrong or this website increased in value about 200.000 TL or as a third reasonable option, the assessment of Arda Kutsal is correct, however YouthRep made this investment for not the net income of the website but by considering the portfolio of the website.

Let’s ask ourselves again how an assesment of a website should be done. Just as FriendFeed which has no income model was sold for 47 million dollar for its strategical importance, ortakantin.com which will barely obtain an income about 24.000 TL monthly might be bought about 800.000 TL due to its strategical position for YouthRep.

An individual turning his back to empty lands by saying “even tomato can not grow here” is an unsuccessful investor. The real investor knows that “nothing springs up on lands with mines under it”. Probably YoutRep saw and/or felt that there is mine under this land, thus the website reached such amounts.

Hope best luck for both sides in this purchase; we will follow the future of the website.

In my opinion, some people try to burn out Arda Kutsal due to nonsensical issues; for that reason, he should inform public opinion with more “tangible” sources in order to prevent them.