Interesting Snippets

Turkey has 35 million Internet users—out of a total population of around 77 million—70% of whom, according to research firm Comscore, are younger than 34. That makes the country the fifth-largest Internet audience in Europe. Those users are engaged, spending the third-longest time online in Europe, after the Netherlands and the U.K.

Turkey has also embraced social media: It is one of the top five audiences on Facebook and top 10 on Twitter. Furthermore, Turkey’s infrastructure is well developed. Credit-card penetration, at some 60%, is higher than the European average of 50%. Online retail is strong and growing fast

“It’s Turkey’s major contribution to the Internet,” says professor Ozgür Uçkan of Istanbul Bigli University, of the site ironically called Ekşi Sözlük, the “Sour Dictionary.”

The site has 36,000 authors, and an equal number of users who hope to become authors. It contains more than 10 million entries, gathered into more than 2.5 million topics, and it attracts 7.5 million unique visitors a month, out of a total Turkish Internet population of a little over 30 million. It’s an enormous success that few outside Turkey have heard of.

This is even more surprising, when you consider that the site just celebrated its thirteenth anniversary February 15th.