According to the Moscow Times, Microsoft will be investing 10 billion rubles ($300m USD) in Russia over the next three years. The announcement was made on Monday by Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer at a press conference in Moscow. Aside from expanding the company’s investment into software for students and startups they will also invest in [...]

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John Rose, CEO of Rose Creative Strategies, writes for the Moscow Times on the subject of using reward schemes to encourage sales during these dark economic times. Interestingly he suggests cross-overs from traditional marketing into the internet, as “penetration is now sufficient in Russia to allow companies to launch national loyalty promotions inexpensively by fulfilling [...]

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Gambling companies have welcomed the news that poker is now officially classified as a “sport” in Russia following an order signed March 26 by the Federal Sports Agency head, Vyacheslav Fetisov. On June 26, 2007, Seven-Card Stud Poker, Omaha and Texas Hold’em were officially included in the All-Russia Registry of Sports. “This game doesn’t have [...]

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The 2008 Russian Internet or Runet Awards were given away last week in a lavish ceremony held in Moscow. Russian singers and celebrities were among the audience as leading players in Russian internet industry were awarded for their contribution to the development of the Russian segment of the internet. The awards have been running since [...]

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Guy Kawasaki, arguably the interwebs most famous VC, has launched a Russian section for his news aggregator – Alltop. As Chris Shipley, the chairman of Guidewire Group and executive producer of DEMO explains in Guy’s blog: “Alltop is deceptively simple. The site gathers up the best suggestions from the most active social web users and [...]

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RBC Daily reports on the latest moves by the Russian government to adopt the first ever legal definition of “Internet media”. It will join print media, radio and TV in the Russian law “About Media” and receive the same legal recognition. According to Senator Vladimir Slutskera, Deputy Chairman of the Committee on Industrial Policy, under [...]

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According to Interfax, Googles proposed deal to puchase the contexual ad provider, Begun.ru, for $140m was shot down by the Russian Anti-Monopoly Service (FAS) on Thursday. The reason cited has been a lack of clear information on the “individuals who can exert influence on the activity of the Google group, as well as a list [...]

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Google’s recent change of policy in the UK to allow PPC advertising for online gaming has re-opened the issue in the Russian markets. This Friday Google started to allow online gaming advertisers to again participate openly in their PPC program, Adwords. As NewMediaAge reports, the initial ban was enforced as part of a company-wide, global [...]

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According to the MindShare Interaction research agency, advertising in Russia grew 73% to $260m in the first half of 2008 and may top $600m this year. Foreign automakers now spend an average of 20% of their Russian ad budgets online, underscoring the huge preference media buyers now place on the Internet at the expense of [...]

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The first ever Russian lawsuit brought against a BlackHat SEO was dismissed this week in St. Petersberg. The SEO in question had used trademarked terms belonging to other companies in the META tags of their clients’ sites. This was done in an attempt to rank their clients in the SERPs for these trademarked terms. Under [...]

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