I was obnoxious at dinner tonight and started following the live blog at GDGT.com for the iPad announcement. I was ready to get one — was even mentally calculating the gadget budget to accommodate it; rehearse the lame excuse to justify it to my wife — but …..
Ehhh. It doesn’t sparkle enough for me to drop my Kindle as an e-reader. The multimedia is the same old stuff — so what if I can get MLB.com on it ? Or read the New York Times. It’s a fine piece of hardware — the 3G data plan is to me the most interesting innovation, but that’s because 3G data plans are the big barrier to tweener device adoption, especially ones that you can’t talk on.
Happy to see the U1 hybrid we showed at CES trend in Twitter as an alternative people are willing to wait for.
Anyway — Turkey. Quiet day. Some meetings, still no intensive sightseeing — that will need to wait until the weekend. The big adventure today was a ferry ride from Barbaros across the Bosporous to the Asian side. One look at the cranes and grain elevators and we stayed on the boat and came right back, where we disembarked and walked to Ortokoy for a kebab and a beer in a cold outdoor cafe with overhead space heaters. This video shows some interesting interpretations of what the U.S. Coast Guard call the COLREGs — the rules that are supposed to keep boats from ramming into each other. I like the Hagia Sofia and Blue Mosque stuff at the end. Really looking forward to capping off the visit with a full day there walking in the shadows of the Komnenos and Palaiologos dynasties.
Great meeting at the Turkish CNET offices — I love the energy and enthusiasm in the Turkish interactive industry. This country has the world’s second highest Facebook usage, third highest MSN Messenger use … amazing growth rates, 3G is less than a year old …. Twitter is coming on strong. I see tons and tons of opportunity and excitement.
I’ll blog more on the market here, but as emerging, hypergrowth markets for digital media and interactive marketing goes, Istanbul is on its way to becoming the incubator for all of Europe and the middle East. Seriously, I say that without traveler’s hyperbole.
Food:
Spicy adana kabab on rice for lunch. Z.z.z.z.z.
Dinner, assortment of mezze — white anchovies and fried anchovies are high on my list. Feta and olives unlike any other. Baba ghanoush …then a lamb shank on pearl couscous.
Tomrrow: Grand Bazaar with a colleague who has to fly out on Friday. Some more calls and homework to prep for Beijing next week. Still searching for the elusive lamachun — Turkish pizza thing.