Russian social network Vkontakte.ru
, notoriously heavily ‘inspired’ by Facebook’s design, business model and features, is plotting an international roll-out according to daily business newspaperVedomosti (Google translation).
The report mentions that the company has recently acquired the domain name vk.com for an undisclosed amount and plans to use it to brand and market Vkontakte.ru in 12 unnamed languages, starting October this year.
Notably, Vkontakte.ru is backed by Digital Sky Technologies (DST), the same investor who recently took a 1.96 percent stake in Facebook for $200 million – giving the company a $10 billion valuation – and soon after offered to purchase up to $100 million of common stockfrom current and former Facebook employees. Now the other high-profile portfolio companyof the Moscow-based investment firm, Vkontakte.ru, is going head to head with the Palo Alto-based social networking giant in multiple languages.
source http://www.techcrunch.com/2009/09/07/facebook-investor-bets-on-two-horses-as-vkontakte-ru-plans-to-go-global/
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