This article was published on November 1, 2011

Internet giant Mail.ru reportedly set to launch Russian Twitter rival


Internet giant Mail.ru reportedly set to launch Russian Twitter rival

Mail.ru Group, the Russian Internet services company which owns a stake in Facebook, is set to launch a rival to Twitter in its native country, according to a report.

Business newspaper Kommersant [Russian language report] cites insider sources at Mail.ru as stating that at a Twitter rival was in the works, which would integrate with the company’s existing properties and allow a user’s microblog messages to appear on their profile pages on other services.

Mail.ru Group is a major force in Russia, owning not only a popular free email service, but the MyWorld social network and blogging, video and photo sharing services among many others. It owns IM service ICQ, and its 2010 annual report declared a 2.33% stake in Facebook, 1.41% stake in Zynga and 4.63 stake in Groupon.

While Mail.ru hasn’t confirmed the report that it is to enter the microblogging market, it would place it in direct competition with a growing audience of Russian language Twitter users. The American company launched a native language service for the country in April this year, while a report from the country’s search giant Yandex earlier this year stated that the number of Twitter accounts tweeting in Russian had surpassed one million.

 

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