The Rambler.ru portal, a property of the Rambler Afisha group, is shutting down some of its services. The mapping, photo hosting and dictionary functions, as well as the ‘Rambler-Plus’ e-currency, are being completely stopped, while the air ticket search engine ‘Rambler-Avia’ will not be developed further, the group announced earlier this month.
Even though some of these functions were launched recently – such as ‘Rambler Avia’ in late 2011 – they are not in line with the portal’s new positioning, the group’s Head of Communications Zlata Nikolaeva explained to East-West Digital News.
“Rambler.ru is no longer a search portal, but a media tech platform which aggregates content from 2,000 publishers across Russia and offers that content in a personalized fashion; and all of its services are meant to complement this news aggregation service,” she said.
The group is not considering selling these assets, Nikolaeva added, but “we may look for a co-investor for ‘Rambler-Avia’ as well as for [the price comparison service] Price.ru and [the context advertising service] Begun.”
In addition to the Rambler portal, the Rambler-Afisha group now comprises ‘Afisha,’ a major publishing house that has print, online and mobile assets, ‘Lenta.ru,’ a major online news portal, and ‘Kanobu,’ a gaming site network which the group acquired in 2011.
Nikolaeva could not disclose the group’s financial indicators, but she indicated that its various properties reached a total monthly audience of over 18 million unique users in 2012, referring to the TNS Web Index.
The TNS methodology includes only users between 12 and 54 years of age living in cities of over 100,000 inhabitants.
