Earlier this month, Russian search giant Yandex announced the launch of new, interactive search snippets called “Islands.” In contrast to previous launches of new features, this time the company decided not to try launching in its home market — Russia and Russian-speaking countries of the former Soviet Union — but to instead roll it out …
Yandex tests new search features on its Turkish version Read More
Earlier this month, Radario.ru, a St. Petersburg-based e-ticketing service for music and entertainment events, closed a $1.2 million investment deal with undisclosed investors in its second round of funding, bringing its total investment since inception to $1.4 million. Daria Semenova, a spokesperson for Radario, explained to East-West Digital News that the startup’s post-investment valuation is …
St. Petersburg startup secures $1.2 million in US-Russian funding to push e-ticketing Read More
Russian billionaire Alisher Usmanov, who controls amost 40% of Vkontakte via the Mail.Ru Group, of which he is one of the main shareholders, is no longer considering an IPO for the social network. The decision was reported by the Russian news agency ITAR-TASS, based on an exchange with Ivan Streshinsky, the general manager of Usmanov’s …
Fugitive former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden flew from Hong Kong to Moscow this Sunday on Aeroflot flight, two days after the US authorities charged him with espionage. His yet unknown further destination may be Cuba, Ecuador or Venezuela, according to media reports. The US government had asked Hong Kong to send Snowden home. But the Hong …
Late last week, Odnoklassniki, Russia’s second-largest social network, announced the prospective launch of its Tajik version. The language of this small Central Asian country is expected to become the last to join the family of the former Soviet Union languages Odnoklassniki speaks. In its brief message to users, the network said its mobile version was …
Odnoklassniki announces its Tajik version, the last among CIS localizations Read More
Last year witnessed the continuation of the steady growth of the Russian gaming market, which reached $1.3 billion in turnover, up 16% from 2011, according to a report released last week by Mail.Ru Group, a leading Russian Internet group. The growth of the gaming market is driven mostly by the online segment, the research points …
Report: Gaming market in Russia reached $1.3 billion in 2012 Read More
Apple’s operating systems iOS 7 for mobile and Mac OS X Mavericks for laptops and desktops, which were introduced to developers last week, allow users from Russia, some other countries of the former Soviet Union, and Turkey, to choose Yandex as the default search engine. The news was confirmed by the Russian company’s International Media …
Yandex search appears in newest versions of iOS and Mac OS X Read More
Russian hotel booking service Ostrovok.ru, which has been generously funded by Western and Russian investors since its launch in 2010, has laid off about a third of its staff in order to optimize operations and secure more investments. The company’s co-founder Serge Faguet made the move public in a corporate blog post published yesterday in …
In what may seem like a commonplace feature in many countries but represents a pioneering move in Russia, leading dating service Mamba has introduced an Amazon-like one-click payment method, making the recurring use of its service easier. Once a user’s bank card is registered for a first-time payment, subsequent payments are pre-authorized based on information …
Online dating service Mamba introduces one-click payments Read More
As Russian media sources air reports about VKontakte (VK.com), Russia’s largest social network, getting rid of its illegal music content, VK.com itself denies any widespread purges, mollifying user protests with a ‘business as usual’ sort of message. “VKontakte, facing the imminent adoption of Russia’s anti-piracy law, is busy removing its illegal music content – perhaps,” …
Russia pushes anti-piracy legislation; VKontakte’s laxity once again in the limelight Read More
Earlier this month, Russian search giant Yandex announced that it has provided a €150,000 grant to Wikidata, a non-profit organization that is developing a knowledge database with structured information obtained from Wikipedia articles. Launched in October 2012 by Wikimedia Deutschland, Wikidata is creating a huge database about different objects, people, things, and phenomena, and how …
MTS, one of Russia’s leading mobile operators, has announced that it has launched a Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) marketplace in partnership with NEC Corporation and started to sell the cloud office solution Microsoft Office 365 to its customers. In the SaaS marketplace “Legkiy ofis” (Russian for “Easy Office”) customers can access applications for business that are popular …
Mobile operator MTS launches online SaaS marketplace Read More
