Russian Mobile Content News
Newsletter, March 02 - April 16, 2007

Mobile technologies against/help Putin's totalitarianism
Moscow, April 14: a "March of Discordants" organized by Russian opposition parties on the Moscow streets has been suppressed by Putin's forces. Many demonstrators have been injured/arrested. Among jailed: Garry Kasparov, the world chess champion and a democratic activist. Numerous pictures of Putin's "real face" were recorded by mobile phone cameras. The evidences (photo and video) taken on site were transmitted by MMS/WAP from person to person. It's an example how user generated content might be a tool of the voice of freedom. A month ago Mike Grenville, a London based messaging expert and the author of www.160characters.org, told me about methodologies to be used by NGOs in order to mislead special services in their tracing of mobile phone users going to participate in public actions. Seems, it's time for Russian NGOs and political parties to learn those methods. There were reports that some of Moscow opposition activists were arrested on their way to join the March of Discordants. It seems, the special services/KGB in Russia know well how to track discordants, including usage of mobile phone positioning systems. BTW, commercial location based services (LBS) and GPS navigation services are very weak in Russia as the authorities do not let them developing.

Russian singer Villy Tokarev suits music site Zvuki.Ru
According to Irina Tulubjeva, one of the best Russian lawyers in music copyright, Zvuki.Ru offered illegally eight tracks of a Russian chanson singer Villy Tokarev. Tokarev brought a suit against Zvuki.Ru claiming 200,000 rubles ($7,692) for copyright infringement and moral damage. The singer is going to persuade three other music sites for similar cases. On behalf of heirs of Yury Vizbor (his songs are known to every Russian hiker and field worker), Irina Tulubjeva has also claimed Zvuki.Ru for illicit distribution of two dozens Vizbor's songs.

Leonard Blavatnik bought a stake in CTC Media
Leonard Blavatnik, an American billionaire with Russian roots, expands his assets in the Russian media market. On March 01 a Blavatnik's company Access Industries bought out 6.1% stake of CTC Media from the Baring Vostok Capital Partners. Market analysts believe that purchase will let Blavatnik, who also has a stake in AMEDIA, a movie and serial production company, to build the entire media line: from content production to distribution. Access Industries owns 25% in TNK-BP oil company, a control stake in SUAL aluminium holding and had 25% in Svyazinvest holding. CTC Media Inc (NASDAQ: CTCM), a Delaware registered company, owns CTC and Domashny TV channels in Russia. Key shareholders: Swedish Modern Times Group (39.8%), Alfa Group (26.49%), Access Industries (6.1%). 2006 revenues: $370.8 mln, profit: $106.3 mln. CTC Media is not the first Blavatnik's media asset. Since the summer 2005 he has 50% in AMEDIA. Blavatnik is also a shareholder and a board member of the Warner Music Group.

MegaFon advises providers to be active in mobile marketing
Denis Nochevnov, MegaFon's head of new technologies and projects, advised content providers to be more active in mobile marketing and mobile ads. He noted that a forthcoming implementation of 3G networks in Russia will not automatically increase content provider revenues. New services, high speed data transmission are unlikely to increase a communication share in the entire consumer expenditure basket. A traditional consumer good market is a different story. Increasing competition results in inflation in advertisement channels: ads prices are rising sharply while ads investment effectiveness is declining. Those factors are providing good opportunities for content providers and carriers in mobile marketing.

Mobile banking in Kazakhstan is expanding
Narodny Bank of Kazakhstan and ALTEL cellular operator have launched mobile banking for ALTEL's CITY subscribers. The CITY users who are card holders of the Narodny Bank can now receive SMS notifications on any card account transaction (purchases, payments for services, cash receipts, commission charges, etc.). Subscribers of Dalacom and PAThWORD (other ALTEL's brands) were offered mobile banking before. ALTEL is currently the third cellular operator in Kazakhstan after the GSM Kazakhstan and KaR-tel (by subscriber number). ALTEL was founded in 1994 by Kazakhtelecom and Wireless Technology Corporation Ltd., serving originally in AMPS, switched for CDMA in 1999. The GSM Kazakhstan was established in 1998 by Turkcell (51%) and Kazakhtelecom (49%); K'cell brand. KaR-tel was founded in 1999 by Kazakh company Telekom Invest (40%) and by Turkish companies Rumeli Telecom and Telsim Mobil Telekomunikasyon Hizmetleri (60%); in 2004 100% were sold to a Russian carrier MTS; K-mobile and EXCESS brands.

i-Free created women's section at MegaFon PRO WAP portal
i-Free, a St. Petersburg headquartered content provider, has developed a new theme module for the Megafon PRO WAP portal, catering to the female audience of MegaFon Moscow. The Women’s World module, designed and supported by i-Free, features a plethora of information, including news and articles on the subjects of Fashion & Beauty, Love, Children, Health, Travel, Sports, Cars, food recipes, horoscopes, as well as the addresses of beauty salons, clubs and fitness centers in Moscow.

MegaFon & KreditPilot.com will show Moscow to mobile users
MegaFon Moscow and KreditPilot.com are launching a project with a working name Big Eye. The service will allow mobile phone users to receive live video from Web cameras installed over Moscow. The Big Eye users would watch traffic jams, public events, and other city doings. Web cams supposed to be located on the main Moscow highways, in the city center, in the Moscow Zoo as well as in restaurants, entertainment and trade centers (ordered by business owners). The service users will need to download a special Java application on their phones.

Shamrock Games implementing DRM
Shamrock Games, a subsidiary of Moscow based Next Media Group, is starting to protect its content with OMA DRM 1.0. "That is just the first step to build a powerful system of digital content protection," commented Dmitry Sergeev, Shamrock Games' managing director. "If you are representing content from the world leading trade marks, it's not just a necessity, it's rather a requirement."

i-Free joined MNOGO.RU bonus system
i-Free has joined the Mnogo.ru club, a vastly popular consumer loyalty program. Since March subscribers buying content from i-Free will be awarded bonus points which they can later exchange for gifts from the Mnogo.ru club catalogue. Mnogo.ru Club currently lists over 800 companies based in Moscow and the region, including major cellular operators, retailers, food & beverage establishments, tour operators, beauty salons, cinemas, and others. When consumers use the services or buy products from any of these companies, they accumulate bonus points on their club card, which they can then exchange for gifts from the club catalogue. i-Free was the first mobile content provider in Russia to join such a consumer loyalty scheme. "We welcome new entrants to our loyalty program, and we are glad that i-Free, a leading Russian mobile content provider, is now a member," said Mark Napartovich, Director of Development at Mnogo.ru Club. "Our partnering program will include massive promotional events to recruit new consumers, step up communications with Mnogo.ru members, and enlarge our SMS service package. I have no doubt that our partnership with i-Free will be a success and beneficial for consumers."

SMS Media Solutions running IVR service for DTV's serial
Moscow based content provider SMS Media Solutions developed and is running IVR services for audience of a serial Dalnoboistchiki (Tracks drivers) launched on DTV channel on March 10. The serial audience is offered to participate at interactive race - a quiz on the soup theme and on the Russian cities which the soup heroes were passing through. The interactive race is integrated in the DTV voice infotainment portal developed by SMS Media Solutions/Soyuztelecom and NevaLine in October 2006. Previously SMS Media Solutions provided interactive services for the following serials: Kulagin and Partners (Rossia TV channel), Solders (RenTV), Named Nikita (TV3), Immortal (TV3). The company is a leader in mobile interactive media services in Russia.

VimpelCom and Google announced news service for mobile
The second largest Russian cellular operator VimpelCom (Beeline brand) and Google announced that a news aggregator Google News for mobile platforms will be integrated in Beeline's WAP portal. The new service will allow Beeline users to search for recent Russian and the world news on the press portals. The Google News for mobile platforms is indexing several thousands news sources over the globe. Zinaida Khokhlova, VimpelCom's alternate marketing director, said that "News is one of the most popular sections of the Beeline WAP portal. That's why it was so important for us to develop a very simple and handy search tool. Besides, users are offered only those sources which were specially developed to be viewed by mobile terminals."

VimpelCom's Top-10 content providers for February 2007
VimpelCom (48.3 mln subscribers in Russia, 56.8 mln subscribers worldwide; MTS - 51.5 mln subscribers in Russia, 77.5 mln subscribers worldwide), published its Top-10 content provider list for February 2007. The rating is based on VimpelCom revenues from the CPA programme (CPA: content provider access) in Russia including voice traffic, SMS and WAP:
1. INFON
2. i-Free
3. Neva Line
4. Nikita Mobile
5. PlayPhone
6. SMS Media Solutions/Soyuztelecom
7. Next Media
8. Irikom
9. Solvo International
10. Svyaznoi Zagruzka.

Next Media promotes Disney's Meet the Robinsons cartoon
PlayMobile, a mobile content distribution subsidiary of the Next Media Group, developed a WAP portal for The Walt Disney Company's cartoon Meet the Robinsons. WAP.TODAYLAND.RU, a part of the cartoon promo in Russia, was launched a week before the cartoon release in Russian cinemas. The WAP site users can download exclusive mobile content based on the Meet the Robinsons characters, participate in quiz and win cartoon branded prizes.

WapStart disclosed statistics of Megafonpro.ru WAP usage
On June 1, 2006, a Moscow based company WapStart launched a WAP search engine poisk.wapstart.ru on the MegaFon's WAP portal, megafonpro.ru. Since that time the portal's WAP traffic volume has reached 53.5 Gigabites. The search engine has processed over one million queries indexing over 33 million documents in the search database. WAP search is the most popular service of the MegaFon PRO portal, over 30,000 clicks daily. The search system supports all media content formats as well as documents in PDF, RTF, Microsoft Office formats and Java applications.

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