In the shadow of terror ‘Webit, Digital Economy Summit'

Istanbul was the host for ‘Digital Economy’ summit by Webit, which has organized various meetings in cities such as Dubai, Mumbai, Singapore and Sofia. The leaders of technology and digital world have gathered for conference in Sisli Marriott Hotel on November 18-19. Chairman of Webit, Plamen Russev, relayed preliminary information, directed speakers to the stage and let them speak in due course.

Five of the speakers have cancelled their attendance with the effect of Ankara rampage followed by the latest attack in Paris. Russev said that it is pretty normal to be afraid but people should continue living the same course of life as they always did. Also he did not forget to praise the participants that attended with no sign of fear and said ‘thank you for not changing your minds’. Russev is endorsing Webit as an informatics network. It was interesting to hear an assessment from someone in informatics field, about communication via e-mail or phone. He said it was hard for people to trust one and other without seeing and looking each other in the eye. I listened to the foreign participants who are comprised of this industry’s multi-national companies’ executive officers. I had the chance of talking to many new digital entrepreneurs.

We have listened to the future of internet through perspective of a company which happens to be the provider of one third of the total internet in the world. Connection is everything…

In his presentation, vice president of Akamai has explained internet by means of the information transfer from mother to the fetus in mother’s womb through their connection. Akamai’s motto is ‘faster transformation’. They have two hundred thousand servers in the world. IBM’s subsidiary SoftLayer’s CTO Marc Jones has presented the latest technologies in another noteworthy field. The service, which is known as ‘cloud’ in digital world, allows utilization of storage and applications without taking up any space in the memory and provides easy accessibility.

Users are looking for a way out of excessive advertisements. Digital and conventional advertisement sectors have changed. Digital services have made a breakthrough in marketing. The president of Economist Group Paul Rossi stated that 79% of the people who read the news on the internet spent time on 5 web sites only; which means, if you are not one of those 5 sites, you have no luck. He emphasized that the number of internet users who block advertisements is in increase and that the advertisement agencies are not in demand anymore. He said that the companies will be carrying out that task internally. He also mentioned that the users had no ambition for the mission of supporting the media, yet they only wanted to find what is useful for themselves, in addition to interesting and valuable things. It is end of the road for cablecast market also.

Internet security and hackers were mentioned as well. Governments have spent substantial amounts for these issues albeit unsuccessful. It has been addressed that various profit entities had been working with different talents for information. The group of people who cipher the codes and the ones who use them are different. Youngsters’ ability in that area is a known fact.

I browsed at the digital service products of the companies that did attend. Is your dog or cat lost? Hooking the little device to its collar with ‘Findy’ will be enough. When fully charged it will be on up to fifteen days because it only operates when you need it. The service is provided through GPS and GSM operators. It is also possible to find things around the house even with a smaller device. You can hook it up on anything you hate to lose. On your key for example…

Services that measure all kinds of your new products and applications’ usability during development period are becoming widespread. How many people are logging in and trying your application at its test phase? Koncept, which presents you similar data, is making usability test easier and collecting valuable data for you.

Istanbul, London and Chicago based company Segmentify, which is founded by Ergin Eroglu, is monitoring the steps of your target market for you and exhibiting the appropriate products of yours to your customers. You end up thinking twice about paying high prices to publicity agencies. Yet, this service has very favorable conditions.

A kit named ‘tio’, which is about to make debut caught my attention; it is a toy comprised of pieces that will improve our children’s creativity. You can build different things with the pieces. You can follow characters with the kit’s application. Inventive children can build many things from a bottle to a truck in seconds without any difficulty.

Uber was also at Webit. For low cost transportation, your vehicle is at your door without any wait by use of an application. ‘Translation shop’ of Emin Koc and partners had become an alternative for those who do not want to struggle with google translate and is providing a service of human translation rather than computer. Institutions had calculated their annual translation cost and the number of those who choose to work with him increases rapidly. He said that he invested 1,5 million Euros and got his money’s worth. ‘Share table’ is another enterprise of Koc. When you apply at the platform with your meal presentations, they organize dining at your residence for foreign visitors and you end up earning an income by hosting those guests at your house. That is entrepreneurship…

Anyway, as Akamai’s John Dillon stated we have come a long way from smoke signals, first telegram and steam power. This is techno era.