#OccupyGezi – Turkish Protesters use Indiegogo.com to Crowdfund full-page ad in NYT

Turkish govt plans to redevelop a park into a Shopping mall & military barracks, among other things, has turned into a big protest against the govt. The park in question is Gezi park in Istanbul’s main Taksim Square. This has led to widespread protests. Activists Oltac Unsal, Murat Aktihanoglu & Dugyu Atacan took to Indiegogo.com to raise funds for placing a full-page ad in NYT. Their goal was to collect $53,800.

This has led to one of the quickest fund collections on Indiegogo.com & with still many days to go, they collected the required amount & exceeded it as well. They had also requested for the ad creatives to be voted for which would go in the NYT ad.

Turkish prime minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan described social media as “the worst menace to society”. Social networks Twitter and Facebook are filled with videos and photos of clashes .Twitter has become the main source of information for demonstrators.

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New York Times launches India Ink – An India Centric Site

New York Times has for the first time launched a country specific site & is targeted at India. Called India Ink, it focusses on the happenings in India. This is part of NYT’s strategy to tap new markets & its global reach. This shows the importance of India in the globalized economy. It will include Indian politics, sports, business, culture & others. India Ink is edited by The New York Times in India and the International Herald Tribune in Hong Kong. NYT Journos, Indian Journos & others will be contributing for the site. With English speaking population on the rise in the globalized India, this provides great opportunities for the western media to tap Indian market. This would also help Indians living abroad to get the stories on their motherland. This will also provide Indians to read at Indian stories from a global perspective.

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is your search firm a white hat or black hat SEO?

After the NYtimes investigative report on JC Penny’s dirty search secreats, the question of white hat or black hat seo is being discussed a lot. There is also a middle line of grey hat seo, where the mix of White hat & black hat seo is used. Search engines have published a set of best practices confirming to which is like a white hat seo. Anything unethical & against the search engines guidelines is black hat. Search engines are refining the guidelines regularly, drawing a clear line between white & black hat. JC Penny has also fired its search firm over the methods the firm has used. Google also penalizes the sites found to be using the black hat methods.