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Russian mining and publishing billionaire goes after a stake in Yandex

Written on 4th August 2008 8 COMMENTS
Ernst-Jan Pfauth, editor in chief

Russian mining and publishing billionaire goes after a stake in Yandex There’s a new loner in the wild west of Russian search engine land, where millions of dollars are spent and Google is just small potatoes. Alisher Usmanov is his name. This man is the founder of Metalloinvest (mining company, €3.3 billion a year) and owner of publishing house Kommersant. As a true media visionary, he has decided to invest in the Russian Internet industry. And when a business man like him enters a market, you know he’s gonna do it with a bang.

What about an acquisition of a 10%-20% stake in Russia leading and Europe’s no. 3 search engine Yandex ($167 million in 2007)? Usmanov wants to buy them from the founding fathers of Yandex as well as via the shares at the upcoming IPO on NASDAQ. To give you an idea about the importance of these negotiations, the IPO was valued up to $5 billion. That means the stake could be worth a staggering $1 billion.

The Quintura blog offers some more background info on Alisher Usmanov’s Internet adventure. Usmanov might be encouraged by the Russian government to get a grip on this booming Internet industry, like he was when he bought the newspaper Kommersant.

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About the author: Ernst-Jan is blogger and co-organizer of BLOG08, who previously worked in New York to cover news at the United Nations. Next to writing, he's also a singer in the band Christina Five. Follow him on Twitter or read his personal blog Dutchproblogger.com .

8 comments/trackbacks to “Russian mining and publishing billionaire goes after a stake in Yandex”

Aug 27, 2008: Russia’s Internet population is on steroids
[...] blog with exciting news from Russia. Whether it concerns search giant Yandex, the iPhone launch, or dodgy oligarchs buying web stocks, the country’s Internet industry doesn’t seize to amaze [...]
Sep 23, 2008: Russian oligarchs slowly taking over Russian tech industry?
[...] the beginning of August, Alisher Usmanov announced that he wanted to buy a 20 percent stake in Russian search giant Yandex. This man is the founder of Metalloinvest (mining company, €3.3 [...]
Jan 12, 2009: Ο firefox θα χρησιμοποιεί την Yandex στην Ρωσία αντί της Google - jooblers.gr
[...] μάλλον Αμερικανικές, κάνει διάφορες κινήσεις. Όπως η αγορά μεγάλου αριθμού μετοχών της Yandex από τον Alisher Usmanov (18ου [...]

By Julian Bond on Aug 4, 2008

A google search for the overweight footballing fan is, ahem, instructive.
http://www.google.co.uk/search.....aig+murray

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By Ernst-Jan Pfauth on Aug 4, 2008

@Julian Bond yeah the man isn’t undisputed

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By plåthall stålkonstruktion on Aug 4, 2008

so much money in russia ;)

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By Maurice Valentino on Apr 2, 2009

Out of MYvosi LLC, comes the face of Web 3.0, Maurice Valentino. Valentino never thought that out of his humble past that he would soon be the creator and innovator of the newest web technology that positions him to become the next Internet billionaire.
Myvosi Web 3.0 is a media/data exchange tool, a search engine that gains knowledge of the user the more it is used. It can be used for networking, it offers the most up to date encryption for product being sold/personal information and has a virtual mall with a presence of 250,000 national and international vendors in contract.In addition to your own personal virtual assistant that controls your every experience desire.
“It will challenge us and move us into the future now,” says Valentino. The site offers human deductive reasoning and inference. “Imagine a machine with personality that’s proactive,sounds like efficiency to me.” states The Face Of Web 3.0(Maurice Valentino).
Valentino also went on to explain in more detail what to expect from MYvosi LLC and Web 3.0.”MYvosi Web 3.0 is the successful marriage of artificial intelligence and the web. In addition we want to be efficient not only from an economical and an environmental perspective but also from an individual and technological perspective. Web 1.0 was for all to read, Web 2.0 was for all write and Web 3.0 is and will be for all to innovate.” personalize your future, live out your potential. Myvosi web 3.0 allows you to search by sentences not eliminating the keyword based search but expanding on it. You can type in sentences and in turn, it would return relevant results and suggest other content related to your search terms. You can ask your browser questions such as “where can I go for lunch” and it will provide you, based on your likes & dislikes something suitable (human deductive Reasoning).”Many fear that this detailed information about them will be exposed, but it is the exact opposite,” says Valentino. Your likes and dislike /personal information are not publicized they are on an encrypted network using the same encryption’s as the one used by the major banks in the world(ex. the TLS and the high 128 bit SSL encryption). This graduates the common concept of the current web, typing in the same information and getting the same information. What’s now offered is a unique individual experience on the web tailored to fit you personality. Myvosi Web 3.0 consist partially of “mashup” applications. An example would be looking up restaurants and have it tie in to another application(GPS) giving you place and directions. Myvosi Web 3.0 has the most intelligent software agent at the click of a button. You can share data files securely and efficiently without the threat of viral and other harmful applications (worms,Trojan horses,malware,etc) infecting your computer.A quote from Thomas Chille” For manifesting a web 3.0, we need a web 3.0. We need a real evolutionary shift in the perception of the web by the end users. Much like the paradigm shift in involving the user generated content for web 2.0.” Its purpose is to educate, create, and innovate the end User’s experience of the Web’s resources. It is an Advanced Version Of the 3 dimensional giant”Second Life,”but Extremely user efficient. The applauding moment was simply this stated by The Face Of Web 3.0 “Most importantly Web 3.0 Is all of you. It isn’t the dominating player with the most Bank. It is about you (the user). We as individuals craft web 3.0. we all have a major role in its implementation” says Valentino. This is just an overview of what Myvosi Web 3.0 offers. The detailed version would require a 1,000 paged text book and far superceeds what was said today. Myvosi Web 3.0 launch date is in the summer (July) of 2010.

Special Acknowledgments:
*Barack Obama in his spirited aura of change
*Tim Berners-Lee and Robert Cailliau who created the World Wide Web at CERN
*James Hendler An artificial Intelligence Researcher
*Nigel Richard Shadbolt founder of the Web Science Research Initiative
*Ora Lassila a Finnish computer scientist
*Computer Science University of Southampton
*Artificial intelligence department @ University of Edinburgh
*Eric Schmidt CEO Of Google
*Doug Lenat Computer Scientist Ceo of Cycorp
*Kevin Kelly Great Mind
If I left anyone out you are not forgotten, but for the sake of time, many more I give thanks to. Thank you all for your research , your time invested in making us better and more efficient economically and environmentally, America and the World thanks you.

A few pioneers of Green Energy who deserve recognition
*Scott mcnealy co founder of sun micro systems say that technology of the Internet is the most planetary efficient way of conducting business
*John Doer partner, Kleiner Perkins Caufield Byers
says that Germany is the largest buyer of solar cells around the world
“These are point that should be noticed and implemented in our economic and environmental strategy and conducive to like such recovery” Says Valentino
*MIT chemist Daniel Nocera
*Thomas Hinderling innovator who wants to build solar island to make us more efficient.
*Texas oilmen like T. Boone Pickens started pushing alternative energy
*Steven Chu head the Department of Energy
just to name a few.

“These are a few of the people who have inspired me to offer the Next generation ready platform. I look at their stories and their desire to innovate and to make better. These are things and mindsets I was conceived in. These Great minds gave me the foundation to start myvosi and change the future. So I personally feel they deserve a great deal of recognition” Says The Face Of Web 3.0 Maurice Valentino

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By Boris Veldhuijzen van Zanten on April 2nd, 2009:
I don’t understand this comment…

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