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Apple is a strange company when it comes to Russia: while it has quite a lot of loyal fans here including our own president who seems to be the biggest fan, the company frequently acts like it does not care about the market and its potential at all. The company keeps delaying launches of its ultra popular products and negotiates prices with local retailers that make Apple gadgets far from affordable for the majority of population of the country.

In this situation it is really no wonder that most people who desire a specific device by Apple that is not available find a way to get it outside of the official market. This trend totally spoiled sales of iPhone 3G and 3GS back then after people arrived here on planes from the US with their cases full of Apple gadgets and everyone who actually wanted to have an iPhone actually had one by the time official sales started...Apple is a strange company when it comes to Russia: while it has quite a lot of loyal fans here including our own president who seems to be the biggest fan, the company frequently acts like it does not care about the market and its potential at all. The company keeps delaying launches of its ultra popular products and negotiates prices with local retailers that make Apple gadgets far from affordable for the majority of population of the country.

In this situation it is really no wonder that most people who desire a specific device by Apple that is not available find a way to get it outside of the official market. This trend totally spoiled sales of iPhone 3G and 3GS back then after people arrived here on planes from the US with their cases full of Apple gadgets and everyone who actually wanted to have an iPhone actually had one by the time official sales started. I suspect this may eventually happen to iPad when it finally arrives he[...]

Do you believe in the power of social media? Of course you do if you are reading this post now because people who read this blog are mostly related to the online crowd in this way or another. But the truth is that the mainstream media still make more difference when it comes to promoting a product (even if it is an online service like Twitter) or turning an online celebrity into a world-famous personality that everyone talks about...

Last week the blogosphere in Russia discussed yet another interesting topic regarding the famous Apple’s device and a huge bill sent to one of subscribers of a local mobile carrier for some international exuberance. And since the summer full of vacations abroad is in full play, the story quickly got to be a very hot one though there’s nothing particularly special about it – nothing but the amount of the bill involved: $17 thousand from a cell phone carrier after a vacation abroad...

I know this may sound ridiculous and even unbelievable but the story has actually received huge attention in the Russian news sources and blogs – as it the story is actually true. I’ve checked, the news is not dated April 1st no matter how appropriate it could be for the day but the entire Russian blogosphere is now discussing how Russia now supposedly has a village named after a website – and a website that works in the frequently criticized and discussed in courts field of torrent tracking and p2p sharing...

If a person knows anything at all about internet business, they certainly know that those numerous web sites they visit every day are mostly supported by advertising - those flashy banners that are everywhere these days. But since no one ever clicks those "You are one millionth visitor, click here for your prize" banners, everyone in the online business knows there's one important thing about ads that actually makes them work: targeting...

It is quite obvious that the social networking boom of the recent years has resulted in abundance of social networks that probably cover all the niches of society. It is quite obvious that in some countries (like Russia where I live) this process is taking longer than it did in the US because all the trends arrive here with a noticeable delay. So while the US has social networks for everything already, in Russia we are now witnessing yet another novelty – a social network intended specifically for state officials...

If you have chosen internet as the place where you do business (no matter what business it is), you probably realize that some of the things that matter to you are hardly important for the rest of the world. You dream about things like getting to the front page of Digg or listening in person to Steve Jobs introducing their brightest shiny product to a huge audience or having 2,000 followers on Twitter, or whatever...

For quite a while I've been watching social networking booming in Russia and it has been a spectacular process here in the country with practically everyone now having a profile on at least one of the two major social networks - Odnoklassniki or Vkontakte. One economic effect of this boom has been obvious for quite a while: many office employees spent huge portions of their time chatting on the social networks with friends and flirting with strangers. It is no wonder that many companies started to ban such social networks in their offices...

Today quite a number of my Russian friends on Twitter are discussing terrible news: a Twitter account of a Russian politician (in fact, working right here in the city of Novosibirsk where I happen to live myself) has been suspended for what seems to be political reasons...