Introduction Turkey, known officially as the Republic of Turkey, is a Eurasian country and it is located between Western Asia and Southern Europe. Turkey is surrounded by four seas; Mediterranean Sea in the south, Black Sea in the north, Aegean Sea in the west, and Marmara Sea in the north-west. The Bosporus and Dardanelles divide the boundary between East Thrace and Anatolia; they also separate Europe and Asia. Neighbors of Turkey are Bulgaria, Greece, Georgia, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Iran, Iraq, and Syria. According to CIA data (2012), population of Turkey is almost 80 million, 17th highest population of the world. The capital of Turkey is Ankara, and the population of the capital city is 3.8 million. Therefore, the largest city of Turkey is Istanbul, located at between Europe and Asia, with 10.3 million people. According to Bureau of European and Eurasian Affairs, Turkey’s long-term economic prospects are bright. Economy of Turkey grew an average of 6.0% in 2002-2007, and that average is one of the highest sustained growths in the world. On the other hand, Turkey grew only 1.1% in 2008, and -4.7% in 2009 because of the global economic circumstances. However, strong baking system, stable growth, privatizations, and telecommunications sectors helped Turkish economy to raise foreign investment. Turkish economy grew 9% in 2010, and 7.5% in 2011. Turkey and European Union signed an agreement for free movements of goods in 1996, and in October 2005, European Union opened accession negotiations with Turkey. However, negotiations are not going well, so far, because there are 33 acquis, which is total body of EU law, and Turkey needs to implement. 13 of them have been opened, but 18 chapters of them are blocked, because of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot on Cyprus Island (Background Not: Turkey, 2012).
Usage of the Internet and Economic Situation As Turkey is a developing country, usage of the internet and other communications devices are growing. According to Internet Word Stats report (2011), Turkey has the 6th highest number of internet users in Europe, with 35 million on December 31, 2011. 30.9 million of the total internet users have Facebook account. However, Germany has 62 million users and only 22.1 million of them have Facebook account. Internet penetration rate of Turkey is %44.4, as Turkey is a developing country; it is neither high nor less percentage. According to the Economist Intelligence Unit (2012), a specialist publisher, the number of mobile phone users was 61.7, and the number of telephone mainlines was 16.1 in 2010 and those numbers are increasing according to estimation of the Economist Intelligence Agency. Most of the population is using mobile phone instead of home phone, moreover total IT spends of Turkey 8.7 billion dollars in 2010. From 2004, Turkey shifted to ADSL broadband service, but recently ADSL subscription growth has been modest, and cable and fibre connections were %68 in 2010 and %73 in 2011. Online banking has shown rapid growth, driven by the desire to lower costs rather than increase sales. Most of the banks are serving Internet-based banking service; 7.8 million Turks had used Internet banking in the previous three months, up from 6 million one year earlier. Number of personal PC was 7.2 in 2005, but it became 26 million in 2011. As Turkey is between Europe and Asia, overseas companies import components and assemble PCs and other hardware locally, for either sale in Turkey or export to the EU or Middle East. There are only three major players in mobile phone market, Turkcell, Vodafone, and Avea. Turkcell has the biggest market share, and Avea has the smallest market share. Those three mobile phone companies have been providing 3G mobile Internet connection since 2011. High speed Internet connection is for high prices, because of the absences of credible competition to TTnet, TT’s Internet service provider (ISP) subsidiary, which controls about %95 of the market.
Regulations and Laws There are some laws and regulations to protect intellectual properties, children from harmful publications, and the community from insulting publications. Akdeniz (2010) mentioned in his article, Report of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media on Turkey and Internet Censorship, Turkey has served an Internet law in 2007, and it is called Law No. 5651. Turkish government enacted Law No. 5651, entitled Regulation of Publications on the Internet and Suppression of Crimes Committed Such Publications in May 2007. The reason why this law was enacted is defamatory videos about the founder of the Turkish Republic Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, combined with increasing concern about child pornographic, and obscene content on the Internet, and websites which provide information about suicide, or illegal substances deemed harmful or inappropriate for children. Since 2009, 3700 website have been blocked under Law No. 5651. YouTube has been blocked between March 2007 and June 2008, the reason was the availability of certain videos involving crimes committed against Atatürk. However, Turkish people are able access YouTube, because YouTube has removed the related videos. Moreover, some of the other websites have been blocked by the law, because of insulting the Turkishness. More recently, Last.fm, Myspace.com, Justing.TV were blocked by the Law No. 5846 which is about Intellectual and Artistic Works. In my opinion, YouTube should have been blocked, and it has been already blocked, because the videos about Ataturk was not only criticizing him, those videos was cursing, or harming. Now, YouTube has no such videos, and it is able to be accessed in Turkey. There are not any negative laws or regulations for e-marketers as long as they follow the laws. Government has released many laws about supporting investors, especially foreign investors such as tax reduction for them. Developing countries are good opportunities for investors, and investors are good opportunities for steady growing countries such as Turkey, so e-marketers can use this opportunity. Politically, Turkey is a democratic country and everything is protected by the laws. In addition, Turkey has a strong government, which has been ruling Turkey since 2002, and a strong economy which grows every year. Turkey is also good strategic place, because east of Turkey is Asia, west of Turkey is Europe, South –East of Turkey is Middle East, Russia and Black Sea in the North, and Africa and Mediterranean Sea in the South.
E-Business Opportunities As a developing country Turkey has attracted a lot of attention with its e-commerce potential in the last couple of years. Accoding to government’s statistic (2011) “Turkey sold over USD 8.9 billion worth of goods and services in a total of 91 million transactions in the first 9 months of 2011”. 8.9 billion dollars are huge number for a developing country like Turkey, so foreign investors should consider that potential. Moreover, Metehan (2012) has reported that Turkey’s credit card penetration is around 60 percent, which is a high rate in Europe. Turkey also is the 3rd biggest web market in Europe and 13th in the world. The average age in Turkey is only 29, so the Internet usage grows faster than other countries. Only %25 of the Internet users spend money on the Internet, on the other hand, this rate is around %60 in European countries, such as United Kingdom. In 2009, e-commerce transaction increased 20.75 percent than a year before, and 28.66 percent decreased in 2010, and it increased 43.27 percent in 2011. Some companies have already taken place in e-commerce area such as gittigidiyor.com, which was bought by EBay two years ago. Grupanya, a daily deal site, was bought by Intel Capital. There are 200 website like gittigidiyor or Grupanya, but only 10 of them represent a considerable amount of market share in the industry. The Turks spent significant amounts of money online and we all know that this is just the beginning. In fact, Turkey is hot: İt has a big domestic market with many young users who love to spend time online. If I were to launch an e-marketing effort in Turkey, I would be in routing and switching hardware sector. I would even sell used routers and switches, because those items are so expensive and not every company can afford in Turkey. My target would be small and medium sized enterprises, in fact big companies. As the government declared few days ago, every company must have a website, which allows customers to buy the products online. People also will be able to see production line of the item that they bought. The first, Turkey has a really young population which follows and uses new technologies. Second, Turkey is growing rapidly and needs fast and better IT connections. I would use internet to sell my router and switches online, such as on gittigidiyor.com. I would sell there, because the people, who already know what those items for, already search on the Internet about where to buy them from and they probably will see my items by Google. As long as I make e-business bigger, I would have some advertisements on Turkish webpages.
Conclusion
Again, Turkey is a developing country which has a really good and sustainable growth rate. Young population makes Turkey a big market for technology companies, young population also provides an opportunity for Turkey, too. Turkey has a strategic location, so Turkey could be a good distribution center for companies.

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