Billboards in Moscow: Google’s act of desperation
Written on June 7, 2008 – 10:03 pm
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief
We’ve recently reported that the Russian search market is dominated by native search engines like Yandex. This leading service was recently valuated at $5 billion and is preparing for an IPO on Nasdaq this autumn. That must have scared Google, as they’ve launched an outdoor campaign called “Moscow 2.0″ - “Know more on Google.ru“.

According to industry analysts, Google has invested $0.5 million in this traditional way of advertising - which comes down to $250,000 per month. That has bought them 550,000 ad places all over Moscow - reports Quintura -, which Google has covered with 24 billboards, 58 benches and 450,000 thousand stickers. Where’s the 2.0 part, you might wonder. Well, Russian can embed their city snap shots and videos in Google Maps. How does that feel, Yandex? Already frightened?
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