Russian-language Firefox users will see a new default search provider soon: Google rival Yandex.
Mozilla currently has Google set to be the default search engine in Russian Firefox, but it concluded that Yandex was the better choice, according to a blog post by Mozilla General Counsel Harvey Anderson on Friday.
"Over the past few months, we have listened to feedback, talked with our localizers, studied the trends of our Firefox Yandex builds, and reviewed the Yandex user experience. All this activity led us to the conclusion that our Russian users really wanted direct access to the Yandex search services in official Firefox RU builds," Anderson said.
"As a result, we're planning on setting Yandex as the default search provider for the Firefox 3.1 Russian locale builds," he said. Version 3.1 is due in coming weeks, after a third beta version is released and tested.
Mozilla gets the vast majority of its revenue through a partnership under which Google shares revenue from search ads. In 2007, that was $66 million of Mozilla's $75 million total revenue.
Details on the change can be seen in the Mozilla bug tracker, which specifically refers to "the new business arrangement between Mozilla and Yandex in Russia."
Russia's largest search site, Yandex, announced today that it acquired Mediaselling, an online display ad agency, for an undisclosed amount in an attempt to bolster its advertising initiatives and establish itself as Google and others try to create a foothold in the country.
Yandex, which recently postponed (Google Translation warning) its plans for an IPO, will allow Mediaselling to continue to operate as an independent entity for a short while, but the advertising firm will eventually become a part of Yandex, according to Mediaselling CEO Lev Gleyzer.
"I have good news," Gleyzer wrote in a blog post. "In September (of) this year, after several months of negotiations, we decided (to) join the team at Yandex. We have relied on (our) partnership and friendship with the Yandex team (and) always found a common language, understanding, and support."
According to the latest figures, Yandex currently serves 1.5 billion searches each month and ranks as the world's sixth-largest search engine behind Google, Yahoo, Baidu, Microsoft, and Naver. And with 10 million users currently embedding its contextual ads on their sites, Yandex's advertising network is growing rapidly. In fact, the company reported at the end of 2007 that its advertising network accounts for approximately 10 percent of its total revenue.
Yandex hopes that the Mediaselling acquisition will help it provide another level of service and ensure that advertising becomes an even more important element of its overall business.
Makhijani will be president and chief executive of Yandex Labs, the company said Friday.
"Vish and his group at Yandex Labs will help to develop and improve Yandex's core technology capabilities including the quality of algorithmic search for the Russian audience," said Arkady Volozh, CEO of parent company Yandex. "We did not hesitate to go the extra mile to find this rare talent." (Though with Yahoo's recent management turmoil, the distance looks to have been shortened considerably.)
Now might be a good time to join Yandex, which maintains an edge over Google in Russia if not the globe. Yandex appears bound for an initial public offering soon on Nasdaq, hoping to raise $1.5 billion to $2 billion, according to a recent Reuters report.
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