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iPad Will Cost Twice as Much in Russia as It Will in the USJanuary 29

Most of the time Russian news agencies are not particularly eager to cover the latest gadgets (especially those introduced on another side of the ocean). The reason is simple: these novelties are rarely something that many people in Russia are actually interested in so why bother covering them if only a handful of people will want to read about such news.

Now imagine my surprise when the first thing I saw on TV yesterday morning was Steve Jobs introducing iPad - that was a story in the Russian news that went live mere hours after the press event took place in California. Honestly, I did not expect Russian TV to react so promptly to an event that did not really sound like anything remotely interesting to the vast majority of people in Russia.

My guess here is that it happened as some sort of an experiment or something from an eager journalist (probably a geek) who was invited to witness the event - probably in Apple’s efforts to generate the famous buzz everywhere and for some reason even here in Russia (I don’t buy any talks about “worldwide availability” in March because Apple devices tend to arrive here much later than people begin buying them abroad and bringing here).

But the irony is that even after the coverage iPad has already received here in Russia (and that it will obviously be further surrounded with), Apple will probably not see any significant successes selling its latest gadget here - most certainly due to its usual strange pricin

It Is Not the Question of Users Willing to Pay for Online Content, It Is the Question of Publishers Willing to ChargeJanuary 18

Yesterday both the blogosphere and traditional media were engaged in a discussion about the rumors published in the New York Magazine about one of the largest newspapers, New York Times, finally being close to making the decision of beginning to charge online users for their news. This is hardly actually news given that we’ve already heard such rumors before and we still don’t get any clarity about the model to be used here - or when this model will be implemented.

But the idea of NYT joining those brave publishers that have already chosen to use some sort of a pay wall for their online content is something that cannot leave any online publishers indifferent - so we get another animated discussion and plenty of opinions pro and contra the idea of paid content.

Of course the question that people are now asking their readers everywhere (and all the publishers considering such an opportunity must think about heavily) is simple: are users willing to pay? Everyone is concerned that such initiatives will never result in anything useful to the publishers - and the entire web industry. And the reason is simple: publishers are afraid that users will simply not want to pay for online content because our habit is that everything that is available online should be available for free.

I’ve been to too many quarrels a

Inclined to Help Haiti Relief? Beware of Scams Already HereJanuary 15

Every time that something appalling happens, I can’t help but gasp at the numerous ways various scammers instantly come up with to make some quick profit on such situations. Unfortunately the latest Haiti earthquake is no exception this time - and I have just received a proof of it myself in my inbox.

Of course it is totally understandable that many people around the world are now willing to help Haiti relief and many do help with their money sending donations to various charities working in the country. No matter how small a donation is, it is still valuable because if everyone chooses to send something, the final amount may be truly impressive and the results will probably be better than anyone hopes to achieve.

But unfortunately scammers are already here sharking on the empathy of people and attacking us while pretending to actually trying to help Haiti quake victims. Now imagine my disgust when I opened my inbox earlier today to see an email titled “Haiti Aid would like to be paid through PayPal.”

This was actually a very standard notification sent by PayPal to everyone if you choose to be notified when someone sends a money request to your email. Such money requests normally include the email of the person (or company) that wants to be paid and the amount.

In this case the amount was ridiculously small - $5 only - and the email address did not look like anything legitimate at all as it was a Gmail account with two dots in it. Now why

Mail.ru Removed Yandex Search but Google Is Not Getting the Market Share AnywayJanuary 13

Some of you may remember that late last year the blogosphere was engaged in an animated discussion over decision of Mail.ru, one of the leading online portals in Russia, to replace search technology by local Yandex with that of Google.

Yandex (which is the leading search engine in Russia with a market share much higher than that of Google) has been the search technology of choice for Mail.ru for the previous 3 years but expiration of the contract provoked new negotiations with potential search partners. Rumors are that eventually Google search technology was selected because Google chose to provide unbranded search results - something Yandex was not willing to offer insisting on an attribution.

In addition to use of Google’s search engine itself, Mail.ru also opened its pages to Google AdSense,- hence becoming one of the major publishers for the advertising network in Russia. This extra income was probably the reason for Google to be willing to provide unbranded search technology where Yandex did not want to.

Another appealing factor that probably influenced the decision for Google was the market share in web search held by Mail.ru: its 10% previously served by Yandex were expected to be going directly to Google now - thus increasing the international search giant market share in Russia from its previous 2

Evil Empire Is… Getting Government Support after a Hacker AttackJanuary 13

Today the news agencies, mainstream media and the blogosphere are all abuzz about Google’s decision officially announced earlier today regarding the company’s intention to stop censoring search results on Google.cn, the search giant’s destination site in China. Back in 2006 Google was heavily criticized for their decision to agree to implement censorship on the site at all - but since it was the only way for the company to enter the giant (and growing) online market in China, the decision was that censored search was better than no search at all.

Now they make a different decision after they uncovered numerous hacker attacks on Gmail accounts belonging to Google, some other corporations that have not been named (at least 20 of them exist based on the information available to Google) and accounts of human rights activists in China. The damage was not really significant judging by the explanation coming from Google but one thing was clear: the attacks originated in China and the fact that Chinese proponents of human rights were among those under attack suggests that the attacks must be connected to the official authorities of the country.

So as a reaction to these attacks, Google now makes a decision to stop censoring search results for the Chinese people - fully realizing that it will probably mean that all their operations in China may need to be closed because this will har