MegaFon, a major Russian mobile operator, has confirmed its acquisition of St. Petersburg Internet provider Web Plus last June, according to the company’s quarterly results. Megafon bought the loss making firm, which owns $4 million in debt, for $2.5 million.
Moscow based startup incubator Fast Lane Ventures has just launched VitaPortal.ru, a website offering health news for the general public, inspired by the success of Western sites such as WebMD.com.
Walt Disney CIS, the subsidiary of the US entertainment giant operating in Russia and the former Soviet states, anounced yesterday it has started introducing international social games to local markets. The first game is ‘Gardens of Time,’ a widely popular game produced by social gaming startup Playdom.
Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed executive orders yesterday establishing procedures for online publication of activity reports from Federal ministries and agencies.
National telecom operator Rostelecom and Irkutsk city authorities signed an agreement last week for the deployment of Rostelecom’s e-government solutions in the city, TASS-Telecom reported citing company sources. Similar agreements have been signed earlier with municipal authorities in Siberian cities of Novosibirsk, Kemerovo, Krasnoyarsk and Omsk.
The number of Russian language Twitter accounts exceeded 1 million in July, reveals a report by Yandex, the top Russian Internet search company whose offerings include a function that searches blogs and forums. Russian speaking users send 370,000 tweets daily. 8% are retweets and about one third are replies to other tweets. The average tweet …
Twitter reaches 1 million Russian language accounts, but user activity decreases Read More
JP Morgan and Russian business daily Vedomosti revealed the detailed shareloder structure of Vkontakte.ru this week. According to JP Morgan, 12% is owned by Vkontakte founder’s Pavel Durov, 8% by his partner Lev Leviev, and 40% by Vyacheslav Mirilashvili and members of his family. Mail.ru Group owns a 39,99% stake, having acquired 7.44% from Pavel …
The United Electronic Trading Platform (UETP), a nationwide bidding platform for state purchasing, announced last Tuesday that thousands of companies have joined the Popular Front through its website. Announced last May, the Popular Front is a political initiative aimed at supporting Russian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin and his United Russia party in the forthcoming legislative …
JP Morgan recommends investors to buy shares in Yandex and Mail.ru Group, the two Russian Internet giants listed on the NASDAQ and the LSE respectively, Bloomberg reported yesterday. The Russian online advertising market could grow even faster than generally expected, JP Morgan analyst Alexei Gogolev argues in his report. Yandex and Mail.ru Group are “likely …
JP Morgan sees online advertising soar, recommends buying Mail.ru and Yandex shares Read More
IBS Group, a major Russian IT consulting and outsourcing company, is ready to sell a stake of at least 20% in Softkey.ru, an online software retailer. The group acquired a 70% stake in Softkey in 2006. Not only does Softkey count among Russia’s top online software retailers, its technologies and servers are also used by …
Minority stake for sale in leading online software retailer Read More
ZocDoc, a New York based startup that allows patients to locate and book doctor appointments online, announced yesterday it secured a $50 million investment from prominent Russian fund DST Global in its third round of financing. Founded in 2007, the site claims to offer 5 million appointments across nine major metropolitan areas and dozens of medical …
Last week, President Medvedev signed certain amendments to the Russian law on personal data, which hardened the legal obligations on all organizations – both corporate and state sector – dealing with personal data. Although the law was voted by the Russian parliament in 2006 – one year after Russia ratified the Council of Europe’s 1981 Strasbourg …
Personal data law comes into full force, Medvedev signs more restrictive amendments Read More
