Russians *almost* smarter than other nations of Europe!

Recently I stumbled upon VKontakte, the Russian equivalent of Facebook. What’s truly interesting is the fact that even though it’s a website with well over 100 million of users, it certainly hasn’t been met with any controversies so far. You know, the kind of thing Facebook unfailingly gets itself into every once in a while.

5 years in business, 100 million of users — not a single time.

Vkontakte just doesn’t cause trouble to its users. Can it be, Russia, such a big nation — not available in Zuck’s database in all of its glory? Well, of course not: they, too, just couldn’t resist. Like everyone else!

They’re massively jumping right in there just now as you read this.

As a curious reader should note, Russia is no easy market for giant western companies; it’s a true challenge, even Google faces a real struggle in there. The article says that while VKontakte remains the most popular social network in Russia, Facebook is well on its way to the top:

Early last year the company cut deals with Russian wireless carriers Beeline and Mobile TeleSystems, so that their subscribers could tap the mobile version of Facebook. To overcome the language barrier, Facebook allowed users to suggest translations for the name of features not easily understood in Russian such as “poke” (as in trying to get another Facebook user’s attention), and then let the site’s members vote them up or down. “Russian is a very complex language, so we allowed the users to translate the interface themselves so that it captures the complex grammar,” says Javier Olivan, a London-based Spaniard who holds the title Head of International Growth at Facebook.

I specifically like the part when Russian users happily help themselves to localize the interface. It reminds me of a document movie I saw the other day, some old footage covering the opening of the very first McDonalds’ in Russia: people standing all the day long in a line, crowding the place just to get a BigMac. Just as if it wasn’t Moscow but some African village striven by hunger, the burgers were free, and they didn’t get to see meat in months. You guys get the picture? It leaves so much for the imagination. They broke sales record: 35,000 happy customers in one day!

Now read the article and see for yourself.