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The company was founded in 2006, and differently from most generic e-commerce and classified ads (e.g. like India’s Sahipasand) the site has decided to focus entirely on gift items such asgourmet products, jewelry and toys, providing as same-day delivery as a special service. In other words, their goal has been to become the go-to online gift shop for the Turkish population.

Headquartered in Istanbul, CicekSepeti currently employs 160 people.

The exact amount of the investment from Amazon, which joins Himmingbird Ventures in the founders’ team, is unknown.

Turkey seems to be a hot market for investors this year, after Tiger Global and KPC & Byers invested heavily in Trendyol and Quants Financial Services (a Swedish fund) entered in Grupfoni. Looking at this list, it seems also onlien shopping is getting hot again: maybe the Internet won’t be seen as a place for loans and real estate business only any more?

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Data monitoring and analysis firm Experian has released the results of a study examining the Facebook habits of users in eight countries across the globe.

Experian examined the users’ visits to the social network and determined how long the average Facebook session lasted in each country, as well as the percentage of each country’s internet traffic that was seen to visit social networking sites. While some of the countries studied also appear on lists of countries shown to have the most Facebook users, an Experian rep told the Huffington Post that this study analyzed Facebook usage only in countries where Experian’s online intelligence service, Hitwise, operates.

Based on Experian’s data, Facebook visits around the world range from 18 to 38 minutes long. The country whose citizens are the stingiest with their Facebook time (see slideshow), spend less than half as many minutes on the social networking site as the nation with the longest Facebook visits. Somewhat surprisingly, considering that it’s the birthplace of Facebook, Americans spend relatively little time social networking. Perhaps, after almost 8 years of commenting, poking, tagging, and de-tagging the novelty has worn off. According to Inside Facebook, six million U.S. users left the social network in May alone.

If Facebook’s growth is indeed bginning to slow in countries where it experienced strong growth in its early years, the same definitely cannot be said for countries that are new to the site. Facebook went global in 2006, opening up to anyone over 13, and now 75 percent of its users live outside of the United States. India has seen the most explosive Facebook growth and is expected to have the second largest Facebook user base in the world by 2012, according to Indian business blog Trak.in. And advertisers have taken notice. In recent years, advertisers in India have increased their Facebook ad spending by 40 percent.

In Experian’s press release accompanying the study, the company notes that the implications of their study could be especially interesting to advertisers. Knowing this information, a company may choose to spend more resources on Facebook marketing in countries where each visit is relatively long.

Here the List -

• Singapore - Average length of Facebook visit: 38 mins 46 sec. Percentage of internet visits that go to social networking sites: 16.4

• New Zealand - Average length of Facebook visit: 30 mins 31 sec . Percentage of Internet visits that go to social networking sites: 13.9

• Australia - Average length of Facebook visit: 26 mins 27 sec. Percentage of Internet visits that go to social networking sites: 13.1

• United Kingdom - Average length of Facebook visit: 25 mins 33 sec.Percentage of Internet visits that go to social networking sites: 12.2

• France - Average length of Facebook visit: 21 mins 53 sec. Percentage of Internet visits that go to social networking sites: 15.1

• United States - Average length of Facebook visit: 20 mins 46 sec. Percentage of Internet visits that go to social networking sites: 15.4

• India - Average length of Facebook visit: 20 mins 21 sec. Percentage of Internet visits that go to social networking sites: 14.0

• Brazil - Average length of Facebook visit: 18 mins 19 sec. Percentage of Internet visits that go to social networking sites: 18.9

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Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that allows anyone to edit its entries, says it is losing contributors.

Founder Jimmy Wales says administrators are scrambling to simplify what he called “convoluted” editing templates that may be discouraging people from writing and editing Wikipedia’s entries.

In another effort to encourage volunteers to stay active, Wales says the site has introduced a new feature called WikiLove that lets users post positive feedback.

He was speaking to the Associated Press on Thursday from the website’s annual conference, held this year in Haifa, Israel.

The nonprofit organization that runs Wikipedia announced it is encouraging professors in India, Brazil and Europe to assign the editing and writing of Wikipedia entries to students.

Source :- http://www.huffingtonpost.com

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The Google+ project, launched on June 28, is now the fastest growing social network ever with over 25 million members, according to a report from Web tracking firm comScore.

Google+ has, so far, out-paced the meteoric rise of sites like Facebook, Twitter and Myspace, comScore vice president for industry analysis Andrew Lipsman told the AFP.

The site is also catching on globally with significant membership in India, Britain, Canada, and Germany, according to the study. A July 2011 comScore study found that Google+ had attracted “20 million visitors in 21 days” and that the United States was home to approximately 5.3 million Google+ users. India was the country with the second-highest number of users on Google+, with 2.8 million members from India.

All good signs, but the big question for Google+ remains whether it can make a permanent dent in the social networking world.

Tech fans have closely followed the rise of Google+ during the past 5 weeks, trying to determine whether the social network will succeed amid a flurry of mixed reports–and staunch competition from the likes of Facebook, which has over 750 million members.

For example, PCMag on July 28 reported that Google+ traffic had begun to drop, but a Google spokesman quickly countered the report, telling PCMag that Hitwise’s data was merely a “blip on the radar.”

According to Mashable, comScore’s data apparently conflicts with Hitwise’s report. Writes Mashable:

A recent report from Experian Hitwise showed visits to Google+ fell 3% for the week ending July 23, compared to the previous week, and that average time spent on the site fell 10%. Meanwhile, comScore’s research shows people spent about 50% more time on the network in the week ending July 24 than in the week that ended on July 10.

Prior to comScore’s most recent study, the consensus about Google+’s success has been mixed.

In July, SocialStatistics.com released a stat that claimed roughly nine out of ten Google+ users were male. This prompted Business Insider to issue the following warning: “GOOGLE+ WILL EVENTUALLY FAIL unless it attracts something it doesn’t yet have: women.” However, two days later, All Things D countered that stat, writing, “[N]ew analysis performed by Paul Allen of FamilyLink and Ancestry.com shows a very different gender balance. Using a method he calls ‘surname-based random sampling,’ with which he correctly predicted Google+’s 10 million member milestone, Allen found Google+ to be 66.4 percent male and 33.6 percent female.”

The social networking site also drew ire from its users after Google deleted accounts due to doubts over their authenticity. In some cases, real users who had used a pseudonym when setting up their Google+ profile saw their accounts closed, much to their dismay.

Visit Reuters to read more details from comScore’s Google+ study.

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A village in northern India has changed its name from that of a god to SnapDeal.com Nagar. The tiny town had good reason to, because SnapDeal, India’s version of Groupon, provided it with fresh water.

SnapDeal’s founder Kunal Bahl wanted to do something good with his company’s burgeoning profits, so like Bill Gates and his philanthropic efforts, the 28-year-old CEO looked for an opportunity where he could have the most bang for the buck.

His answer? Water. He found out that a mere $5,000 would install 15 hand pumps that would make it so the villagers wouldn’t have to walk nearly two miles just to get clean water. The result was life-changing, Bahl told CNN.

The villagers were so grateful for the SnapDeal.com-branded pumps distributed throughout the city, they decided to change the name of their village, formerly known as Shiv Nagar (named after the Hindu god Shiva), to SnapDeal.com Nagar.

Kunal Bahl hints at more such philanthropy in the works by his bustling New Delhi-based business, the largest daily deal retailer in India, according to the SnapDeal.com blog. When asked if this was a marketing or PR gimmick, he replied,

“All we can say is that time will show our commitment to this project and even the things we do in the future. You need not be a multibillionaire company to make a change in society around you. This project was not about the power of money but the intent and efforts which our team took to give this dream alive. Even if one small company takes inspiration from this, we will feel our efforts have borne fruit.

Source :- http://mashable.com

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Original Post at Yahoo News.

Bengaluru: Those who doubt the power of Twitter should think again as the micro-blogging site helped save a life today.

Jaishree Menon, a mother of three, today threatened to end her life as she said she could do nothing to stop her husband from exploiting his own daughter. She felt neither the police or any organisation could help her daughter.

She tweeted: “I think I should end my life. My daughter is exploited by her own biological father . no police no womens commission able to do justice.”

This post caught the attention of Twitter users who then jumped into action and spread the word among journalists, who contacted the police and made sure the 48-year-old Navi Mumbai resident was safe.

Here are some tweets on the Jaishree Menon case:

Barkha Dutt: Thank god @jaishreemenon is safe and sound ! Phew

Barkha Dutt: My colleague rashmi rajput in touch with area DCP re the @jaishreemenon case. Will update as soon as one knows more

Pervin Sanghvi: Please read @SachinKalbag ‘s tweets on Jaishree Menon. Relieved to know she and her children are safe. Thank you for mobilising support.

SachinKalbag: Jaishree is safe. Her daughter is okay too. So is her son.

Sachin Kalbag: The police have unearthed several details in the case, but of an extremely personal nature. So I am not going to post them here.

Sachin Kalbag: Reporters called the police in Navi Mumbai following which two officers have gone to Jaishree’s house. Let’s see what happens.

Sachin Kalbag: Our reporters are on the job in the Jaishree Menon case. So have the cops been alerted.

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A new version of the various Facebook scams we have seen since the death of Osama bin Laden has emerged.

Naked Security reader Sampath sent us a tip-off about the latest variation he had seen of a viral scam that poses as a video of the killing of Osama bin Laden:

OSAMA KILLING REAL VIDEO LEAKED
OMG! real video of Osama Bin Laden being killed. Video leaked by wikileaks. Watch it before it get deleted.

A link in the message may, at first glance, appear to point to the YouTube website but in fact points to a similar-looking Indian domain name ending in “.in”.

If you make the mistake of clicking on the link you are taken to a third-party webpage, which poses as a security verification check from YouTube.

Quite why anyone would imagine that typing in the words “real video” is any form of security verification is beyond me.

But what’s happening here is that when you submit the so-called CAPTCHA text you are unwittingly publishing the message to your own Facebook wall. This spreads the message virally to your Facebook friends, and helps spread the scam further on behalf of the bad guys.

The scammers make their money by tricking you into taking an online survey. They earn commission for each person they managed to complete it, and you might be the sort of person who is tempted to answer the questionnaire in the belief that you’ll get to see a video of the Osama bin Laden being killed.

Remember – the real YouTube would never ask you to complete an online survey before watching a video, and that scams like this are rife across Facebook. As long as Facebook users keep falling for scams like this, they’ll carry on being a problem.

Source :- http://nakedsecurity.sophos.com

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Over 1,00,000 followers on Facebook; over 7 lakh people express their solidarity through phone lines

Satyagraha finds its way onto new media, after Facebook, Twitter and SMS added teeth to social activist Anna Hazare‘s crusade against corruption. Hazare’s protest involves him fasting until death till the government agrees to table the Lokpal Bill, which puts corrupt politicians to accountability and scrutiny by an independent body. In practically no time, the Facebook page of Hazare’s India Against Corruption movement garnered over 1,00,000 followers.

The campaign for Lokpal Bill spread onto Twitter as well in the form of janlokpal account, in addition to many celebrity accounts taking up cudgels on Hazare’s behalf. Additionally, group SMSes urging people to ping 022-61550789 to express their support for the cause were sent out by anti-corruption campaigners. A whopping 7 lakh missed calls were recorded, which is a good indicator public anger against the scourge.

Hopefully, Facebook and Twitter will prove to be the same catalyst that they turned out in the Egypt protests.

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Will give predictive search results as you type keywords in the search bar

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Like they say, better late than never.

A good half a year after Google launched interactive prediction based search feedback service Instant, Yahoo India just announced that it will launch its own version of Instant dubbed Search Direct. Don’t hold your breath yet, because the service will not be available till the second half of 2011. Just like Google’s Instant, Yahoo’s Search Direct predicts search results as you type in the keywords into the search bar. The announcement comes a week after Yahoo launched Search Direct in U.S. in the beta stage.

“The new search engine predicts search results as fast as a person types – character by character, and presents those results dynamically, generating a fast, simple search experience that goes beyond mere blue links,” said  Prabhakar Raghavan, chief scientist, senior vice-president and head of Yahoo Labs. Despite competition from Google, Yahoo reaches out to 30 million unique users per month in India, which is about 74 percent of the Indian Internet audience. Loyal Yahoo users therefore finally get one of Google’s most innovative features on the search engine of their choice.

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