ERSU ABLAK

Rise in gaming hardware sales with COVID-19 ERSU ABLAK

Rise in gaming hardware sales with COVID-19

COVID-19 has affected businesses in different ways like that of restaurants or shared offices that suffered more than others, while some like gaming companies and marketplaces have seen tremendous growth.

September 07 2020
Surviving on the edge ERSU ABLAK

Surviving on the edge 

Istanbul’s startup ecosystem has gotten a lot of attention lately, because Peak was sold for $1.8 billion recently. However, I believe that it is still not very high on the government’s agenda. At least it is not as important as it should be. For some reason, authorities favor the construction industry above all and seem not to care about the technology industry that much. This is a mistake. 

June 25 2020
The long tale comes to an end ERSU ABLAK

The long tale comes to an end

The ownership of Turkcell has been a disputed topic for several years. The company was not functioning properly because of this conflict and had been performing below par. Now, the Turkish Wealth Fund is stepping in and buying the disputed shares, thus ending the 15-year stalemate.

June 18 2020
Intelligent security ERSU ABLAK

Intelligent security

COVID-19 has shown us that in order to survive we need to adopt new standards. We need to do our best to minimize the risk getting and or spreading the infection while we keep working so that the world economy does not collapse.

June 11 2020
Peak interest ERSU ABLAK

Peak interest

The sale of Peak has startled many in Turkey. A small group of people that makes up the Turkish ecosystem already knew that Peak was the first unofficial unicorn, but to the masses it came as a very big surprise. I have watched many interviews of Peak’s strategy director, Ömer İnönü, and I really understood why we never hear about Turkish software and technology firms in the news. The great anchors who could speak for hours about politics had absolutely no idea what to do with the information of this sale. And all of them were focused on the amount of money to be exchanged. $900 million cash and $900 million worth of Zynga shares. I don’t really believe that many of those news anchors realized just how important this exit is.

June 04 2020
Will virtual be the norm ERSU ABLAK

Will virtual be the norm?

It was not so long ago that online dating was frowned upon, yet it has become the norm in many countries. With the COVID-19 crisis, it has surged all over the world.

May 21 2020
Virtual worlds are here to stay ERSU ABLAK

Virtual worlds are here to stay

Digital platforms and virtual worlds are set to become the biggest gainers in the post-COVID-19 world. This is one of the 100 issues discussed in Walter Thompson’s updated 2020 report. According to the report, video chat app Houseparty was downloaded 2 million times during the week commencing March 16 alone and saw an increase in daily traffic of nearly 80 percent between Jan. 21 and March 24. Facebook data shows that as of March 24, 2020, time spent in group calls increased by over 1,000 percent, and Snapchat reported a 50 percent increase in video calls between February and March this year.

May 14 2020
Global joblessness in highly educated workforce ERSU ABLAK

Global joblessness in highly educated workforce

All around the globe, in every industry people are losing jobs.

May 07 2020
COVID-19 and the application industry ERSU ABLAK

COVID-19 and the application industry

COVID-19 has changed our daily behaviors greatly. We are not behaving like we were two months ago. We try to avoid going out, and when we do, we try not to commute and stay as far away as possible from other people. This behavioral change has also triggered some side effects. We are much more into the app world now. Suddenly we stopped caring about how many hours our children are spending on the mobile phones. We’ve been cooking, fixing things, doing sports, doing yoga and, of course, we began to spend much more time streaming video content and gaming.

April 30 2020