Social Networks in Russia

In last several years the difference between Russian internet (Ru-net) and Internet became minimal. There are all general kinds of Web 2.0 services: Mash-ups, AJAX Applications, web-services, "youtube-clones" and, of course, Social Networks. There are more then 10 well-known social networks with 100.000 users and more. And they double their network every month! Most of the users are students, graduated student and IT persons. Now, you can encounter with girl in cafe, that provides Wi-Fi services, which is sitting in one of this network.

Most global services has announced about its IPO. And about the half has been bought by Leaders of Ru-net. e.g. yandex bought moikrug few days ago.

here is a list of most popular:
vkontakte
moikrug
fakultet
etc.

Also, Social networks is the one of popular topic in russian blogs for several weeks.

Interesting Web 2.0 Application

I have already written about different kinds of web 2.0 application.

Today, i found an other on: web 2.0 ... database. It has very nice an user-friendly interface. Also it provides a powerful interface to data (e.g. View). Import/Export to/from off-line formats is the Ad hoc useful feature.

It has about Access + Excel base functionality and provide a rich possibility to deploy and share database.

You are going to use web 2.0 database application or nor, anyway just i advice to take a look to it.

Regional Parliament election in Saint-Petersburg

It took place this Sunday. I was very disappointed by results of this elections:
No liberal party had been elected to the Parliament :
party "Yabloko" had been removed from the electional company 10 day before the election date.
The second liberal party hadn't been elected: only 5% instead required 7%. So now, only the following parties will work in Parliament of Saint-Petersburg:
Edynaya Rossia (United Russia) - "Putin's patry"
Spravedlivaya Rossia (Just Russia) - a union of the "left" parties.
KPRF (Communist Part Of Russia) - No comments.
LDPR (Russian Liberal-Democratical Party) - Most liberal party in the current parlament.

So, the result of this elections:
There is no strong liberal opposition in Russia, but it's very important for the Business to have it, especially for the small one and IT.

WEB 2.0 Innovation Map

This is a map of "homes" of Web 2.0 innovation applications.
It was not a surprise for me that there is no any participant from Russia in this list. The nearest is from Ukraine - and this is a surprise. It looks that SW industry outside Russia is more fresh then inside. But for me, this is a benefit, because i am going to start up my first project in Russia, at least for the first time.

The second "not surprise" - position in US: there is no empty space (in default resolution of google map) on it.

But it's very strange that there are only few in the Australia, China and India.

SW Development Industry in Russia and in other countries

I was very wondered that Chinese internet has more then 200 mln of your users, and about 400 mln of Chinese citizen know Enlish at lease on the basic level. For comparison: In Russia, there is about 20 mln of internet users, and english-speaking citizen about 25 mln (by my opinion). I always thought that China is a very big village, where peasants live. I am very worried about India and China, because i am not sure that a few of Russian brilliant-mind IT employers can engage in competition with cheap and educated employers from this countries.

And about the salaries in Russia and China:
University-graduated employer earn 1200$ and 350$ per month in this countries!
But 1200$ in Russia - it's not a very big salary (the common level is about 450$, but most part of salary is "tax free", so it should be about 800-900$).
In opposite, in China 350$ - it's a very high salary, that provides a good level of live.

So: IMHO software outsourcing is not a very perspective in Russia environment, and Russian companies has only one change to survive: build products and sold them to the end-customers all over the world, like their colleagues from West Europe, USA and Australia.


Also, i am sure that everyone must think about success not only today, but tomorrow too.

Application outsourcing orders

I have found a very interesting fact: Only American customers orders Cutting-Edge Web 2.0 Application. The customers from the different countries (for example - UK), order the application with Windows GUI interface for user, Application Server on the server side and data transporting via .NET Remoting interface. It's very strange that there are such big difference between the tendentious in the difference countries that have about the same technical level.

But i am sure that most of the project will have a rich user experience web-based UI.

The Story of success

I found an interesting article about Sergey Brin (co-founder of google inc.)
Link

I think it's a very good article about Russian-born entrepreneur and his first steps.

Also, I was very impressed that Sergey's father wished to be an astronomer, because i am studying on this specialization right now.