REUTERS - Russian internet group Mail.ru was rebranding as VK, the initials of its social network VKontakte, and would rename a number of its services to incorporate the new brand. Dobrodeev said the rebrand would not impact the operational structure of the business.
by Anna Rzhevkina & Alexander Marrow
See full article at Nasdaq
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TELECOMPAPER - Russian social network Odnoklassniki has started offering speech-to-text messaging. The service recognizes voice messages and covers them to text by default, based on AI and neural networks technology designed by sister company VKontakte. Voice messages in the Russian language for up to 60 mins can be converted.
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MARKET SCREENER - May 27 - VK has become the first social network to integrate a voice assistant added to its app. With Marusia, many VK services have become even more accessible and easy to use. The Marusia voice assistant will become one of the key unifying elements across the entire VK ecosystem. Marusia can be found in the Hub tab on the VK app. To start chatting with Marusia, a user has to click on the voice assistant icon. Over time, the variety of Marusia's skills will grow.
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TELECOMPAPER - May 19 - Russian social network VKontakte plans to launch free video-conferencing for up to 2,048 call participants simultaneously. The option should be introduced this coming summer. The company claims that its VK Calls platform provides all the features commonly found in chargeable corporate video conference services and some additional features, all for free.
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AIM GROUP - Mar 15 - Worki, a recruitment vertical owned by Mail.ru, has become part of the popular Russian social network, VK. The vertical also changed its name to VK Jobs. Worki is in the top-three when it comes to the number of active resumes on the site. This makes it highly appealing to recruiters. If recruiters operate a group on VK, they can post paid advertisements from VK Jobs and receive 50-95% of the revenue from the ad. There are currently ~100k groups whose owners can benefit from the opportunity. VK Jobs has also opened its database of seven million resumes to recruiters. If a recruiter wants to reach out to a candidate, they can pay a fee of $0.61 to receive contact information.
by Alina Zaites
See full article at AIM Group
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RAPSI - Jan 22 - Russia's communications agency Roskomnadzor has sent a request to the management of VKontakte social network demanding to immediately suppress involvement of minors into unauthorized rallies. Based on the demand of the Prosecutor General's Office, Roskomnadzor asked the social network to prevent distribution of information involving children into illegal actions dangerous for their lives.
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TELECOMPAPER - Dec 29 - Russian social network VKontakte said that the number of messages sent on the network jumped by 50% YOY in 2020. ~15B messages are sent daily by the users. The user base of the social network's call service soared by 22%. The user base of the VK Pay payment service lifted by 50% to 16M.
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AIM GROUP - Dec 14 - Youla, the No. 2 general marketplace in Russia, has teamed up with vKontakte to offer a marketplace feature on the social network. The feature is similar to Facebook's Marketplace offering. From now, listings published on Youla or in the Listings section on vKontakte will be available on both platforms. Sellers will be able to add listings to relevant groups on vKontakte. ~4k groups have already opted into the feature. The classifieds listings are currently available on the VK mobile app. The company plans to add it to the desktop version soon.
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PLEDGE TIMES - Aug 31 - The social network Vkontakte has published statistics on blocking hate speach according to the new norms of the platform. Over the past week, 142 communities have been blocked under the new rules. Vkontakte blocks those who systematically post offensive content or incitement to violence.
by Bhavi Mandalia
See full article at Pledge Times
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ASIA ONE - Nov 19 - VKontakte is entering China by opening a marketing branch in Beijing. VK, based in St Petersburg, has ~250M accounts and 4B daily page views. ~70% of the users are in Russia. The daily net profit of the company is $1.8M. VK may launch a cross-border online shopping service in coming years, helping Chinese retailers to explore the Russian market.
by Gao Yuan
See full article at Asia One
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GIGAOM - Sep 16 - Mail.ru has bought out VKontakte, the largest regional social network. The buyout became complete on Tuesday, when Mail.ru bought the remaining 48% that it did not own for $1.47B. The stake in question belonged to United Capital partners (UCP), run by Kremlin ally Ilya Sherbovich, which bought it off some of the VK co-founders (not including Durov) in April 2013.
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THE GLOBE AND MAIL - July 12 - Pavel Durov, of Russia's popular social media network, VKontakte, stands up to Federal Security Service, or FSB, requests to shut down the page of political activist Alexei Navalny and turn over personal data on Ukrainian users. Rather than take part in what he calls “political censorship,” the 29-year-old Durov posted the FBS letters to his VK page, stepped down as CEO, and fled the country.
Mr. Durov and VK have been in the center of Russia's struggle between social media's freedom of expression and the corporations and government trying to control it, since late 2011 when VK pages gave young Russians a place to vent their political frustrations following Putin's return to power. At that time, Durov refused to block the profiles of protest groups prompting Russia to pass Internet laws that would make it harder for him to say no in the future.
Growing weary of all the political and corporate pressure on the company due to Russia's growing battle over the future of Ukraine, and an ongoing struggle over ownership of VK, Durov chose to take on the role of a political fugitive forced to leave Russia. In the wake of his departure, Russian lawmakers continue to pass laws that place restrictions on the Internet.
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TECH CRUNCH - Apr 21 - Pavel Durov, the founder of VKontakte.com, Russia’s top social network with ~100M users, is now out for good from the company, and is likely to start building a mobile social network this year. “I’m afraid there is no going back,” he said of VK.com, “not after I publicly refused to cooperate with the authorities. They can’t stand me.” For now, it looks like VK.com’s deputy chief executive Boris Dobrodeyev and executive director Dmitry Sergeyev are running the network on an interim basis.
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AFP - Apr 22 - VKontakte had accepted the resignation of its founder, Pavel Durov, after he announced earlier this month he was leaving and then apparently changed his mind.
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BLOOMBERG - Apr 7 - United Capital Partners, which owns 48% of VKontakte's holding company VK.com, sued Pavel Durov, the founder of the Russian social network, over control of a separate mobile-messaging service he developed. The fund claimed that VK.com is the proper owner of the messaging service, called Telegram. Durov says he used his own money and assets to develop Telegram, which is run by a nonprofit entity he helped set up in Berlin.
by Ilya Khrennikov
See full article at Bloomberg
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