Turkmenweb's servers. Photo from the Tmhits blog.

Editor’s note: neweurasia’s Annasoltan concludes her conversation with Turkmen entrepreneur Muhammed Mamedov, turning to the subject of Turkmenistan’s internet environment and its authoritarian practices. “I don’t agree that the environment isn’t internet friendly, at least not for what I am doing,” he says. “I can build online communities, news websites, anything I want.”

Welcome back to my interview with Muhammed Mamedov, the self-proclaimed “pioneer” of the Turkmennet, and indeed, a man with good credentials for the title. In the first introductory part, Mamedov and I talked generally about the role of his company, Turkmenweb, in establishing the online Turkmen community. In the second part, we discussed in detail his main breadwinner, Tmhits (http://www.tmhits.com), and his plans for the future. And now, in this, the final part, we turn to what I think is the most interesting question of all — his views on Turkmenistan’s internet and business environment.

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A screen shot of Tmhits' video service, taken from the Tmhits blog.

Editor’s note: neweurasia’s Annasoltan continues her conversation with Turkmen entrepreneur Muhammed Mamedov, turning to the subject of the website Tmhits.com and the unique challenges of the Turkmen music industry. “It’s hard to deal with musicians,” he says. “Plagiarism is a disease in Turkmenistan’s music industry.”

Welcome back to my interview with Muhammed Mamedov, the self-proclaimed “pioneer” of the Turkmennet, and indeed, a man with good credentials for the title. In the first introductory part, Mamedov and I talked generally about the role of his company, Turkmenweb, in establishing the online Turkmen community. Now we turn to some of the nitty gritty of his main breadwinner, Turkmenhits (http://www.turkmenhits.com), and his plans for the future. In the next and final installment, we’ll turn to the question of Turkmenistan’s internet and business environment.

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Editor’s note: During the dark days of Niyazov, when the internet was closed to the majority of Turkmen, an entrepreneur in Houston was laying the groundwork for today’s growing “Turkmennet”. neweurasia’s Annasoltan sits down with Muhammed Mamedov of Turkmenweb and listens to his view on the past, present, and future of his business, the Turkmen online community, and Turkmenistan’s internet policy.

If you’re looking for a person with a good deal of experience in creating Turkmen websites, then Muhammed Mamedov, the founder of Turkmenweb (http://www.turkmenweb.net), and the man who calls himself “the pioneer of the Turkmen web”, is certainly one of the people you should talk with.

Many of you may have visited his sites without being aware of it, as the scope of Turkmenweb’s activities is quite broad. Recently, I had a chat with him which was quite enlightening about the history of the Turkmennet…

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