Russia

Pics or it didn't happen.

By now, you have probably seen the AP story from Moscow about how a billboard on a highway near Kremlin was hacked to show porn. I also bet you haven't seen any pictures of the hack unless you know your way around the Russian corner of the blogosphere. AdLab to the rescue!  The video (via) is after the jump and is very NSFW.

We’ve written before about the size of the Russian social networking market, and the fact that Russia has the world’s most engaged social network users. And this weekend it was reported that one of the largest, Russian-language, social networks might be plotting an international roll-out.

Earlier this year we reported on how Russia is the fourth largest social networking market in Europe. Data from TNS showed that use of social media and social networking in Russia is widespread, making it the fourth largest market in Europe for social networking behind the UK, Germany and France. In part this position is driven by strong local social networking sites, principally Odnoklassniki (Одноклассники), which reports some 30 million registered users, and VKontakte (В контакте) with some 28 million registered users.

We’ve posted in the past about the use of social media in Russia, when Russian President Dmitry Medvedev launched a video blog. But data from TNS shows that use of social media and social networking in the country is widespread, making it the fourth largest market in Europe for social networking behind the UK, Germany and France.

by: Ilya Vedrashko

Russian agency Fabula (rus) makes money by negotiating product mentions in bestselling fiction books.

by: Ilya Vedrashko

by: Ilya Vedrashko

I put together a YouTube playlist with a compilation of 13 recruitment ads from different countries. Comparative military propaganda highlights of the weird:

by: Ilya Vedrashko

This spot for Russian Gmail (Saatchi Moscow, via Armando) is a great demonstration of the paper prototyping method (see a wiki definition, and a good book).