The MoscowTimes reports that FaceBook is in talks on cooperation with Russian mobile operators and is opening up an office in Russia. Within a few days, Facebook will announce the opening of its Russian office, said Unova Media, organizer of the Russian Internet Technologies conference, where Andrew Bosworth, Facebook’s top software engineer, made a presentation. [...]

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Yandex, the leading search engine in Russia has released their own branded version of the Chrome browser. It’s an interesting move to co-opt the browser technology associated with Google, and use it to further the Yandex brand. Isn’t Chrome Licensed To Google? Although Google holds trademarks on “Google Chrome” and “Chromium”, the terms “Chrome” or [...]

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The Trans-Siberian Railway is the longest stretch of railway in the world. The epic 9226 km journey covers 1/3rd of the planet, 7 time zones, 2 continents, 12 regions and 87 cities. Now Google, in partnership with the Russian Railways has brought this journey to your desktop. By clicking on the map you can view [...]

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Yandex, the leading search engine in Russia was quick to adopt Twitter. Last September they started publishing a list of the most popular Twitterati and including the service on their blog section, which shows statistics for many social platforms. Now they have released a short PDF report which lists some key statistics for the Twitter [...]

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This week The Moscow Times has conducted a series of interviews on the state of e-marketing in Russia. Essential reading for anyone working in or considering expanding into RuNet. These should remain open to public viewing, follow the links below: Changes in Consumer Preference on the InternetBy Inessa Ishunkina, Project director TNS Russia RuNet of [...]

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The Russian law “About the State Regulation of Activities on Gambling” comes into effect tomorrow, forcing many casinos to shut their doors. . Although Vladimir Putin could not have foreseen the economic crisis when the law was proposed in 2006, the implementation could not have come at a worse time for Russia. An estimated 400’000 [...]

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Josh Catone over at SitePoint reports that Firefox has decided to drop Google as their default search option for Yandex. This will effect all the versions they release for the Russian market. According to Mozilla General Counsel Harvey Anderson, the reason behind the change was a study of Russian user behavior conducted by Mozilla that [...]

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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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