A video: “What Happened To YouTube?”

00:02 YouTube’s revenue decline raises concerns about reaching its peak 01:54 YouTube’s revenue disparity between shorts and full-length videos is a concern for long-term profitability. 03:45 Short form content earns 100 times less revenue per view compared to long form content. 05:18 Promoting shorts on YouTube leads to less revenue 07:02 YouTube is doubling down … Read more

“Self-immolation of Aaron Bushnell” in Wikipedia

It was one of the most discussed entries last week. Here is the entry link On February 25, 2024, Aaron Bushnell, a 25-year-old serviceman of the United States Air Force, died after setting himself on fire outside the front gate of the Embassy of Israel in Washington, D.C. Immediately prior to the live-streamed act, Bushnell said that he was protesting against “what people … Read more

Google’s increasingly faster re-branding efforts

Google’s increasingly faster re-branding efforts. Google Bard is now Google Gemini. This was fast. I asked Gemini to gather all rebrandings after I saw and lost a twit making fun of Google’s rebrandings. Google AdWords → Google Ads: Streamlined for a broader understanding of its functions. DoubleClick Digital Marketing & Google Analytics 360 Suite → … Read more

A video: “Why Is Everyone Ditching Gmail?”

I am not exactly sure about and I still rely on it but let’s have a look. 00:16 Gmail’s popularity is declining rapidly. 01:53 Gmail’s surprising success and popularity 03:29 Gmail’s growth was driven by invite-only strategy and desirable features. 04:56 Google+ and mandatory Gmail account were major reasons for people ditching Gmail 06:22 Google’s … Read more

Academic Informatics Conferences resumed and I was glad to be part it

Academic Informatics conferences were led by “the father of Turkish Internet,” Mustafa Akgül.  After his death in 2017, the annual conferences stopped after 2019. I was happy to hear that the meetings would start again. A few days ago, I participated in one of the AI and Social Life panels at Istanbul University. Here is … Read more

A video: “Snapchat – The Rise and Fall?”

00:02 Snapchat experienced tremendous growth and then a significant decline 01:47 Snapchat is thriving with 400 million daily users 03:19 Reggie Brown lawsuit led to $150 million settlement 04:47 Snapchat popularized innovative features and focused on user experience. 06:16 Snapchat slowly built advertising revenue to $4 billion each year 07:51 Snapchat faced challenges in making … Read more

Navalny is the last of a long list of Putin Critics’ Suspicious deaths

Suspicious deaths of Putin critics include [compiled by Perplexity] Alexander Litvinenko, a former Russian spy who defected and was a prominent Putin critic, was murdered with polonium-210 in London in 2006[2]. Anna Politkovskaya, an investigative journalist, was shot dead in her Moscow apartment building in 2006[1][3]. Boris Nemtsov, a vocal critic of Putin’s government, was … Read more

A video: “The Underdog Story of Zoom”

A video: “The Underdog Story of Zoom” 00:02 Zoom’s rise to dominance over Skype 02:08 Eric’s passion for technology and determination to succeed 06:06 Eric’s perseverance and dedication lead to success at WebEx. 07:58 WebEx saw a major increase in demand after 9/11, prompting the launch of their first video calling feature. 11:45 Eric took … Read more

Come to Istanbul! “Istanbul Named the World’s Most Visited City in 2023”

Istanbul Named the World’s Most Visited City in 2023 – TimeOut TimeOut Euromonitor International released its list of top 10 cities for international arrivals and the Turkish capital claimed the number one spot. How Female Chefs Are Sparkling in Istanbul – The New York Times The New York Times Women, long expected to cook for their families at … Read more

Our special issue on AI and Social Life (Reflektif Journal) has just been released

Reflektif is an open-access journal published by Istanbul Bilgi University Press. You can access the special issue here. Our launching event is on YouTube now. Two reports from our AI literacy projects are added to this volume. I had my “AI for Social Good” report translated into English so you can have a look!  You … Read more

A catastrophic mining accident may have happened in Erzincan

As usual, we don’t have much details. Canadian ambassador denied it but the mining was operated by a company based in Canada. A mining accident occurred in Erzincan, Turkey, where a pipe carrying cyanide solution burst at the Copler Gold Mine, causing 20 cubic meters of toxic solution to spill into the Karasu River, which … Read more

A video: Whatever Happened To uTorrent?

Summarized by Merlin app: 00:01 uTorrent’s popularity has declined significantly in recent years. 01:46 uTorrent experienced a rise and subsequent decline despite popularizing decentralized file downloading. 03:34 Ludvig created uTorrent as a no-frills bittorrent to solve issues with existing bittorrents. 05:10 uTorrent was purchased by Spotify, who sold it to BitTorrent 06:51 Bram Cohen took … Read more

A few days in Ankara

I just came back from Ankara. Sinem and I love Ankara, so whenever we have time, we stop by Ankara. This time, we mostly settled in Çankaya, in our favorite hotel, Hotel Jinnah- but unfortunately, this will be the last time we will stay there as the hotel has been poorly maintained. Anyway, my excuse … Read more

My Google Maps performance-200 million views. Still lots of place to visit…

I wasn’t a person to travel a lot. In my first two years in Houston, I saw only a few places except the Rice campus. In order to motivate myself to see more places, I began to collect local newspapers at that time. But I changed a lot. I wouldn’t call myself a traveler, but … Read more

A video: “How To Steal And Lose More Than $3 Billion In Bitcoin | CNBC Documentary”

A video: “How To Steal And Lose More Than $3 Billion In Bitcoin | CNBC Documentary” 02:16 Private investigator helps a man track down the thief who stole his money and bitcoins 08:30 Jimmy Zhong lost more than $3 billion in Bitcoin and spent a significant portion of his wealth partying. 14:36 The investigators visited … Read more