Profy

Russian Microsoft division has published its report on the corporation's losses in the country caused by use of pirated software by the Russian users. And the amount is definitely impressive: the company claims that they lose as much as $1 billion every year due to activities of pirates. And while experts claim that this estimation is at least twice higher than the true amount, it is still impressive.

And no matter what the real amount is, it is even more interesting given that the overall annual sales of Microsoft products in Russia generate approximately the same estimated $1-1.2 billion dollars. The thing is that in 2008 the share of pirated Microsoft products was more than a half of the entire consumption - 68%. And while this is 7% lower than in 2007, it is still more than a half.

Microsoft estimations are based partly on their mystery shopping inspections of computer retailers...

The topic of women in tech is getting popular occasionally for no apparent reason but one blogger choosing to discuss it on a low-news day because he or she happens to care about the role of women in tech and how it is insufficient or not visible enough or whatever...

I have to admit it: I have a secret passion for disaster movies and this is the category of movies that will invariably get me to a movie theatre - even if everything else I can watch on DVD from the comfort of my sofa at home. So I've been looking forward to watching 2012 since I first saw the trailer - and we headed to a theatre this past Saturday after it had been released in Russia on Thursday...

Today the president of the Russian Federation Dmitry Medvedev has appeared with his annual address to the Federal Assembly (the Parliament of the country). These addresses serve to voice out the intentions of the head of the country for Russia's near future and are usually watched carefully by everyone who is interested in the direction the country will go in during the next few years.

This year's event is unusual at least for one aspect: it has been prepared in collaboration with thousands of Russian internet users...

For quite a while I have been witnessing people experimenting with the very same methods of promoting their accounts on Twitter without actually inventing anything new. In fact, these methods have probably existed for almost as long as Twitter itself has been available to the general public and they probably look boring to everyone already.

Both the traditional methods are absolutely legitimate and natural and can be used by normal Twitter users same as they can be by spammers - the difference is only in scale here...

If you have a blog that has at least a few dozens of subscribers, I am quite certain you have received various emails inviting you to install a widget or a button that is promised to improve just about everything on your blog and make people stay longer and read more posts at a time.

I get tons of such messages myself but the most remarkable was some blogs rating website that used to bombard me with their emails about how they rated Profy at 4.9 out of 5 and now invited me to install the widget on Profy for everyone to see it (and probably be envious, not sure)...

Forbes is obviously a well-known international brand for all the business-related news, analytics, interviews, and just about everything a business person may need to stay up to date with the market. Unfortunately this very professionals-oriented brand has just demonstrated a huge lack of professionalism in one particular local market - in this case in Russia.

The thing is that in Russia Forbes magazine has been published since 2004 and accumulated significant experience in offline publishing over the time - and popularity among the target audience which includes more than 800 thousand people for every issue...

In the end of every year Wikimedia Foundation, the non-profit institution behind the famous Wikipedia, launches the efforts of raising funds to run Wikipedia next year - to finance salaries of employees, numerous servers or whatever else it may be that is needed to run a huge website that Wikipedia has grown to be over the years.

I guess it is pretty hard to find anyone online who has somehow managed to avoid all the tips and advice regarding how unreliable Wikipedia can be if you use it for any study or work-related purposes...

The tech blogosphere tends to be very happy when we see new signs of how various governmental authorities go social and adopt various social tools like Twitter or Facebook. Of course it is obvious that we want every single government regulator to be on Twitter and for citizens to be able to get some services they need by posting an @reply or a direct message - instead of visiting some office and standing in some line...