Andrei's Blog

Just over one month ago we announced the intention to sell afcomponents.com, and today I am thrilled to say that the site has been acquired!

The new owner is a Raytown-based ProContent, who is excited and very capable of taking AFComponents to new heights. ProContent has been developing Flash / Flex solutions since 2002 but are best known for their work on Flash-based content and Amazon-branded cloud services.

Before making the decision, we reviewed a number of offers, and ProContent stood out for their technical expertise, strong product portfolio, solid understanding of the interactive space, and established presence. Most importantly, the guys have shown a strong commitment to continue to develop AFComponents and grow the community. All in all, it is a great fit!

After working on AFComponents for 5 years (more on that in the next post), it is extremely rewarding to know that the project is in good hands. I look forward seeing it grow under the new leadership.

All the best to ProContent and AFComponents!

Update: Denver Business Journal – UMapper sells Advanced Flash Components

p.s. Bonus from the good old days, left to right: Matt Wiggins, Dmitry Stolyarov, Andrei.

The concept behind Russian mobile social network Vstrecher (“meeting” in Russian with a funky ‘er’ ending) is quite simple: share your location, current status and upcoming plans with friends, and discover new places along the way. The application uses a phone’s GPS (tower triangulation or manual location update) to determine user’s location and alerts friends using group text messaging service. When running on a background, Vstrecher updates your location automatically and sends updates as you go.

Currently the application works only in Moscow and St. Petersburg, but they have plans to expand to the rest of Russia in the near future. The application itself is free, but you pay about $0.08 to update your status via SMS. Interestingly enough, there isn’t a version for IPhone or Android. Instead Nokia, Sony Ericsson, Samsung and Motorola handsets are supported. I assume that this has to do with the low penetration of smartphones in Russia (thoughts?).

The company was founded in 2008 by Sergey Denisyuk as a side project, but it quickly grew into a full time job. Today Vstreher generates revenue through the sales of its white-label platform. In parallel to Vstrecher, Sergey founded a mobile coupon company Topskidka which recently generated its first ad revenue. Although both projects are currently self-funded, Sergey plans to raise funding and will be presenting at The VC Trip To Russia later this month.

Startups all around the world are staking their territory in the location land rush, and Moscow-based POIdo is no exception. Launched in March 2010 by serial entrepreneur Nick Mikhailovsky, POIdo is Russia’s first location-based advertisement (LBA) platform.

POIdo makes it possible for developers to monetize mobile and browser-based applications and enables advertisers to geo-target ads. This sounds very similar to other LBA platforms, but what makes POIdo different is its approach to targeting. In addition to the user’s location, the system takes into account their behavior in the context of the application in which the ad is shown. Just like AdWords, POIdo employs the bidding model in which advertisers compete for visibility in a specific location. Today advertisers are charged on CPA (cost-per-action) basis, but other models are coming soon.

According to Nick, the company has over 20 commercial customers and over 1,000 paid POIs in the Moscow area. On a daily basis POIdo serves between 50,000 and 100,000 ad-impressions across their publisher network. This is a good start considering that the company was launched only couple of months ago.

Personally, I think this is a tough model that requires a large distribution in order to attract a critical mass of advertisers. On the other hand, companies like Placecast were able to make this model work in the US. Besides, the the timing for LBA platforms could not be better. I will be curious to see how POIdo does in the Russian market and whether they move fast enough to create a market for themselves before Yandex moves in.