The Missing Culture Interview Name of your website?The Missing Culture Your name? Missin Cee Your Location (city, etc) Istanbul Please give us a short summary of your website? Artwork and Antiques from Private Collections; A collection of rarely seen and unknown items traded in the obscure alleys of the Orient.~~ What inspired you to launch your own website? There is a lot of antiques and artwork traded privately, on and off-line. Unlike museums, which do a wonderful job of keeping indexable databases, it does not hold true for private items. The good sites insist on using flash, the bad ones are simply bad. I am trying to build a site that will be informative, descriptive and beneficial to the researchers, historians and enthusiasts. When did you launch your first website, and what was it? I launched the site in the beginning of August 2008 in the hope that the present and missing culture will be available to all. How did you decide on a name for your website? It was not difficult, at all. Being an enthusiast myself, although I can afford a collection, I knew that a lot of artifacts, artwork, and antiques are missing in the web. They were there, but if you do not know which keywords to use, and if the web page containing it did not use a proper HTML, it was extremely difficult to find them, if not impossible. Hence, the name. What makes your website different from other, similar offerings? I have taken great care to use proper HTML, done my very best to find good photos (it is difficult considering we are dealing with private collections here). Besides, I am trying to find more informative and accurate descriptions of the items; a difficult proposition. When I find it, I upgrade the site. I also include articles about history and culture of the Orient. What is your eventual goal? (To sell it, keep it for income, secure a book or other mainstream media deal?) Frankly, I have not thought of it, maybe keep it for income, but I am not personally selling or brokering any of the items listed. My main goal has always been to bridge the gap of what is missing, arouse interest the history and culture in the region. How does your investment of time and money balance against your success? It is too early to say anything, but if you really need one, I should say poorly. If you had an unlimited development budget for development, how would you change your site? I would like to allocate all of my time to this, as some pieces might have had an interesting story. It would be really satisfying to research and find them, and let everybody know. This really requires more and time, and money. If your site got really big, really quickly, would you be able to keep up with the demand? I do not see a reason for not being able to do so. What unexpected costs and headaches have you had to deal with? None, so far. What has been your biggest challenge? I have been searching to find more information about two items listed. Let us hope those in the know will step forward and share their knowledge. What method has been most successful for promoting your website? I am basically relying on search engines. I have no finances to promote the site in any other way. How has running your website differed from your expectations? Again too early to say but I am satisfied so far. How long have you run the site already, and how long will you continue to keep it up if you don't enjoy big gains in traffic, income or popularity? It has almost been two months. Provided I survive in the real world, I will continue to keep it up. What is your website address? The Missing Culture | 
