The Spring of Russian E-commerce - An exclusive global perspectives series

Category: Online media

E-books now 5% of market, but pirates still dominate

Special to East-West Digital News by Oleg Kouzbit in partnership with Marchmont News / May 14, 2012

Russia’s e-book market has been growing at a robust CAGR of 120% over the past three years, swelling from 11 million rubles (just under $370,000) in 2008 to 135 million rubles ($4.5 million) in 2011, Russia’s Federal Press and Mass Communication Agency reports in its overview of the national book market’s progress and trends for this year.

According to the report, the top players in the market are LitRes and IMobilco, controlling an aggregate 74% of the domestic e-book trade. LitRes, the leader with a 54% market share, also boasts the majority ownership of copyright for distributing Russian-language books on the Russian-language Internet.

Avito.ru secures $75 million from Accel Partners and Baring Vostok

By East-West Digital News / May 02, 2012

Avito.ru, Russia’s leading classifieds site by brand awareness and number of users, announced today that it has received $75 million in new funding from Baring Vostok Private Equity Fund IV and Accel Partners as well as from existing investors Kinnevik and Northzone.

The valuation has not been disclosed, but Avito’s press service told East-West Digital News that it was “considerably higher” than the $158.73 million figure of last year, which was revealed in the latest annual report of Vostok Nafta, another shareholder of Avito.

Avito.ru revenues up 8-fold – but valuation target still far

By East-West Digital News / Apr 11, 2012

The 2011 valuation of Avito.ru, Russia’s leading classifieds site by brand awareness and number of users, amounted to $158.73 million, according the annual report issued by minority shareholder Vostok Nafta earlier this month.

Based on a transaction that took place in mid-2011, the figure marks a 2.5-fold increase from the valuation of the previous year, $66 million, but still stands far from the $1 billion target mentioned in the fund’s report last year.

Fast Lane sells teleshopping company to German group

By East-West Digital News / Apr 10, 2012

Fast Lane Ventures announced last week it has agreed to sell its stake in the TV and online teleshopping company Shopping Live to the German group Home Shopping Europe for an undisclosed amount.

A 24-hour channel, Shopping Live offers live programming up to five hours per day. The channel is currently represented on such major satellite TV operators as Kontinent TV and Tricolor TV as well as on the cable TV channel of MTS, a leading Russian mobile operator.

FSB seeks to drive Western intelligence out of blogosphere

Special to East-West Digital News by Oleg Kouzbit in partnership with Marchmont News / Apr 03, 2012

In a new bid to put a lid on uncensored Internet exchanges, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB), the post-Soviet successor of the KGB, has called for a crackdown on the “detrimental activity” of Western intelligence services in cyberspace.

Speaking last week in Tashkent, Uzbekistan, at an interregional anti-terrorist panel of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), the FSB’s deputy director, General Sergey Smirnov, spoke of a need for “adequate measures” to deal with the “cyber-pressure” that the Russian security watchdog feels from foreign intelligence “seeking to inflict losses on us.”

From St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, 180,000 webcams monitored Russia’s presidential election

By Ekaterina Preobrazhenskaya, Adrien Henni, East-West Digital News / Mar 05, 2012

In an unprecedented experiment to ensure voting transparency, most of Russia’s 94,300 polling stations were equipped with webcams offering a live broadcast of yesterday’s voting.

The broadcast, which started at midnight, Moscow time, on election day, ended after all vote counting operations were completed. It was followed by up to 400,000 simultaneous Internet users on a dedicated website, Webvybory2012.ru. As many as 1,600 operators were hired to support a toll-free hotline to answer questions from site users and receive their feedback about technical problems.

Cease-fire in political hacking on Election Day

By Elena Mikhaylova, Adrien Henni, East-West Digital News / Mar 05, 2012

In contrast to the massive hacker attacks that took place during the parliamentary election on December 4th and over the following weeks, no notable incidents were reported yesterday when Russian voters reelected Vladimir Putin as their president – a sign perhaps of the increased legal risks and political cost for the parties involved.

Using computer hackers in political battles had become almost common place over the last few years in Russia – the country where the largest number of DDoS attacks originated in the second half of 2011, according to a recent report from Russian Internet security provider Kaspersky.

Online event solution startup TimePad secures investment from Rambler-Afisha

By East-West Digital News / Mar 02, 2012 / 1 Comment

TimePad, a startup offering a range of online tools for event organizers, announced on Wednesday that it had received an investment of undisclosed size from the Rambler-Afisha group.

TimePad’s functions can be compared to those of Eventbrite or Armiando. They include event publication and promotion, through existing contacts and social networks, as well as online registration, ticket sales, and attendee management.

Yandex yields traffic leadership to Mail.ru

By East-West Digital News / Jan 20, 2012

Mail.ru Group, the London Stock Exchange-listed Russian Internet group, marked a symbolic victory in its battle for leadership over the Russian Internet against search behemoth Yandex. At the end of last year and for the first time since 2008, the group’s portal and e-mail service Mail.ru overtook Yandex in terms of traffic for two successive months. According to TNS Russia, the search engine attracted 29.39 million unique users from Russia between the ages of 12 and 54 in November and 29.91 million in December, compared to 29.43 and 29.97 million for Mail.ru.

Futubra, Russia’s response to Twitter, aims to set new standard in microblogging

By Adrien Henni, East-West Digital News / Jan 18, 2012 / 1 Comment

While Twitter is gaining traction among the connected Russian elite, Mail.ru Group, the Russian LSE-listed Internet group, announced on Monday the launch of Futubra, a remarkably designed microblogging service.

Although some observers have nicknamed it “the Russian Twitter,” Futubra seems closer to Tumblr in terms of functions, with its focus on multimedia content sharing and immediate access to all users’ content. But Futubra distinguishes itself with more advanced news group and comment functions.

Category: Online media

E-books now 5% of market, but pirates still dominate

Avito.ru secures $75 million from Accel Partners and Baring Vostok

Avito.ru revenues up 8-fold – but valuation target still far

Fast Lane sells teleshopping company to German group

FSB seeks to drive Western intelligence out of blogosphere

From St. Petersburg to Vladivostok, 180,000 webcams monitored Russia’s presidential election

Cease-fire in political hacking on Election Day

Online event solution startup TimePad secures investment from Rambler-Afisha

Yandex yields traffic leadership to Mail.ru

Futubra, Russia’s response to Twitter, aims to set new standard in microblogging

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