MSN will dive to Russia for advertising dollars

    Microsoft is leading Russia’s MSN service , including MSN Messenger . Advertising placed in projects will be oriented to our person. According to Kommersant , experts do not promise Microsoft big profits in this matter, since national players dominate the Russian online advertising market. But foreigners have not succeeded in crowding them out.

    Meanwhile, the MSN Messenger instant messaging service, according to comScore Media Metrics, is the main driver of the global IM market. According to the published plate, in May 2006 it had about 204 million users, which grew by 13% compared to last year (May 2005 - 180.7 million) - this is the largest growth among the other IM leaders. The share of ICQ service so popular in Russia, in comparison with the “piece of cake” of MSN, is quite small - it amounts to 33.8 million.

    According to Kommersant’s data, MSN itself is gaining up to half a billion users every month, earning a solid profit from advertising. Thus, through advertising in the first half of 2006, the corporation earned about $ 1.1 billion. Formally, MSN is available in Russia, but so far it uses less than 1% of runet engines.

    But by the beginning of 2007, changes in Microsoft’s policy towards the Runet’s audience will become obvious. MSN Messenger has already been Russified, a Russian-oriented mail service is being tested. In the long term - the appearance of blogs and the Russian version of www.msn.com . The launch of a campaign to attract advertisers is expected in spring 2007.

    Experts believe that MSN as a platform will be in demand by Russian advertisers. Dmitry Ashmanov, CEO of MindShare Interaction, notes "a large shortage of advertising space." In his opinion, the appearance of such a large foreign player with high-quality space and traffic is very important for the domestic online advertising market. At the same time, the expert added that "the debut in Russia will not bring MSN big profits." “If MSN appears in Runet next year, it will be able to earn from $ 5 to 10 million,” he said.

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