Musings Of A Marketer

Here is another reason to pay attention to the Russian Internet space.

Gazprom Media (part of the Gazprom) has acquired the Russian copy of YouTube - the video sharing site Rutube.ru. The site was started right after the older brother was bought by Google. The Russian site has not received the same amount of money, but the specialists all agree that it was still overestimated ($ 15 mln). This sum is probably nothing for Gazprom, but the deal means a lot not only to RuTube guys, but also to the industry. I don’t know the official statistics, but it seemed to me that the site had been dying out lately, even before YouTube launched their Russian interface. Now the competition will become even tougher on them, and Gazprom’s investements might give them a chance to fight.

I disagree with the analysts who expect RuTube to become just an Internet platform for their more traditional media channels (the holding is strongly represented in TV, radio and print media). The guys there are not stupid, even if they do not have that huge experience in the net. Moreover, none of the RuTube staff are leaving - everybody, including the tops are staying with the company. It looks more like RuTube won a good round of funding, so I believe, content-wise there are not going to be any significant strategic changes.

As for the industry impact, Russian Internet is heating up. We remember the last year’s big news when russian holding SUP bought Livejournal  - the social network most popular with the Russian audience. I also wrote just yesterday about another social networking site - Hi5 - launching their Russian interface, and I believe, more news will be coming from the country.

While MySpace are still looking for their staff, another network - Hi5 - are welcoming the Russian audience with the newly introduced interface in Russian. But even these guys have been late, the Russian extention Hi5.ru being already booked by cybersquatters.

The company quotes the E-marketer’s article expecting Russia to be the 2nd biggest Internet population in Europe, following Germany. Add to this all the Russian-speaking population in the countries of former Soviet Union, and the attractiveness of the audience becomes quite obvious.

Good move from one of the world’s most popular social networking sites. This should add to their network of users, especially considering the slowliness of their competition.

Movie Poster Addict have posted a very interesting collection of posters: all the winners over 79 years (and, of course, updated now to 80 after the 80th Oscar ceremony).

If you are into posters - have a look at the way they made it in the old times, and what we have now, and if you like movies, there’s a great list for you to revise - you may have missed something, or you may want to watch some once again…

I am afraid I was too fast hailing guys from GoDaddy. It appears they are making troubles to some of the Russian hosters - banning the domains registered at GoDaddy and hosted at some Russian providers.

I read a post here (in Russian) - in June 2006 GoDaddy blocked 1399 domains hosted at one of the biggest Russian provider Majordomo. No warning, no decent explanation etc. The main idea was spamming issues, but come on, 1399 names in one go? Among those - sites of Governmental institutions.

Why am I now talking about this old story? Just yesterday I found my friend having the same porblem. He just registered a cool domain name with GoDaddy, to the website hosted with a big Russian provider - Ru-Center. Neither he received any sort of a warning, nor he was explained of anything - he cannot start his website working - the domain is blocked, and the DNS link to SUSPENDED-FOR.SPAM-AND-ABUSE.COM. They replied a couple of times to his mails - explaining that there were some sort of security issues - spam, untrustworthy blah-blah. And then suddenly disappeared - no reply for several days already.

I mean, what kind of spamming problem can there be with a website that has not even started yet? Is it a fair policy - blocking crowds of domains for one or two spammers? I dare say, it’s not… So I am expecting my humble site to be blocked soon. Stay tuned

There is a post by Erich Joachimsthaler at Harvard Business Conversation Starter, which is not very new, but I have just been thinking over the same idea lately - where do you lose as a big company with as big a competition, and how do you win as a small company fighting to get into a niche to survive.

It turns out that it is possible for small ones not only to survive but rather win over the niches which are way more attractive than the markets where giants operate. How this is possible? Erich says the big ones would miss stuff because they are so overwhelmed with monitoring what they are doing at the moment, and researching for what competitors are doing. All the minor changes are being noted and acted on accordingly, but when it comes to a big thing that is a little out of the box, it becomes vague and unclear - no time to address to that. That’s where the small ones - those who concentrate on customer needs rather than competitors’ advantages - come and take charge.

I can’t tell how true this idea of the big airlines not paying enough attention to customers is, but you can see the result:

Four chic but cheap business-class start-ups, Eos, MAXjet, Silverjet and l’Avion have launched all-business-class flights on the incumbents’ most profitable routes from London to New York with huge success. They offer new services for business travelers that are so obvious and valuable: extremely late check-in, fast paths through the airport to avoid the masses, guaranteed luggage immediately upon arrival, private departure and arrival lounges, and all-business-class seating at very reasonable prices — even as walk-up fares. Two years into the launch it is clear that business travelers are taking great liking to these new airlines, which are beginning to get a lot more attention.