Bogdan Gavrila – Core Target

Few people know the history of the Internet in Romania but yesterday I had the chance to notice the sudden death of local legend – I think it deserves a post.

1996 – The first Romanian newspaper published on the Internet marks the launch of online journalism in Romania. ZIUA was the first general newspaper to walk on the digital world in a time when “e-mail” was considered as hot as “twitter”

2006 – Top 10 online player – During the years, the brand was challenged by many scandals and urban stories, ex-KGB spooks, secret documents and secret agents, legal and financial matters. The company was bought by local media mogul Sorin Ovidiu Vantu but was considered the “ugly duck” for Realitatea-Catavencu group and was never fully integrated in the group.

2008 – SATI: Affinity for old people – I remember a short episode in 2008 when I saw the first SATI demographics: Ziua.net had a strong affinity for old people and a heavy component of foreign audience: Ziua was also the first romanian newspaper with an online version for romanians living in and USA and Canada.

2009 – November – The Record – 2009 presidential elections in Romania also set a new traffic record for ZIUA: 1.488.159 unique visitors.

2009 – December: The announcement – Sorin Ovidiu Vantu announced his future plans in an interview: his investments will shift towards Internet and the print titles will be either sold or closed down. The news didn’t came as a surprise for people working at ZIUA at that time. The website still had 1.340.620 uv in December 2009.

2010 – January: The end of ZIUA - Facing critial financial issues, the newspaper was closed down. Ziua.ro displayed an empty homepage and Ziua.net was suspended. I tried to find out if the website was available for sale – at that time the website counted 1.046.633 unique visitors. I was not the only one interested in the faith of the website, I found out that Sorin Rosca Stanescu, the founder of the newspaper, was also interested in aquiring the domain but was politely declined.

2010 – February – 326.783 unique visitors – 1.000.000+ was a constant number for Ziua.ro in 2009: direct hits, heavy users and a very stable traffic. Last month the website lost this 1.000.000 people.

If you know how hard or how expensive it is to bring 1000 people to a website imagine how is like to lose 1 million visitors in a market like Romania. I understand the reasons for closing down the print edition but I have no idea what went wrong with the online edition nor how the strategists in the group missed the potential and the market share of the website… after all, it was the first online newspaper in Romania.

I’m doing live blogging right now from a very interesting event hosted the International Advertising Association (IAA Romania) YP Chapter.

Dan Petre (Managing Partner D&D Research) is delivering a great presentation on insights, market research, tools and advanced techniques.

Also invited to speak this evening: Raluca Oprescu – Marketing Development Management Ursus Breweries and Sorin Psatta – Integrated Communications Director BBDO.

I had a twit  this morning about Simina’s article based on local media budgets in 2009 published in Wall-Street. According to Alfa Cont numbers,  Romanian top 20 advertisiers spent almost, 2005,3 mil EUR (rate card) in 2009 compared to 2174,2 mil EUR (rate card) in 2008.

The panic effect: similar bugdets, 90% discounts

The difference: 168,8 mil EUR (rate card), a very small percent if compared to the est. 2,1 bln EUR (rc). The panic effect we saw in 2009 weakened media vehicles as the overall spending budget remained the same while the prices went down, discounts and rebates went up  - buying media with up to 90% discounts is now something ordinary on the local media market.

The climate was very good for the clients in 2009, 13 of top 20 spenders increased their budgets and in some cases we saw over + 50% growth (Reckitt Benckiser, Henkel and Ferrero).

Top 20 Advertisers in Romania – 2009 vs 2008 comparison:

Source: Alfa Cont – Romanian Advertising Market

Wael Abbas was one of the guests at the World Blogging Forum in Bucharest last autumn (I wrote a post here about his fascinating story, online activism and struggle). On the 21st of January the court of Hadayek ElQobba, upheld the sentence against of six months imprisonment. Find below more info about the imprisonment and about how you can support Wael:

تأييد الحكم بحبسي ستة أشهر

تأييد الحكم بحبسي ستة أشهر
Upholding the Imprisonment Sentence of Blogger Wael Abbas, Six Months In Jail

Cairo on 21/1/2010

The Arabic Network for Human Rights Information said that the misdemeanor court of Hadayek ElQobba, upheld the sentence against the blogger “Wael Abbas” of six months imprisonment and LE 500 pounds as a judiciary bail in order that he would not attend the appeal hearing. The lawsuit was filed against Wael by a citizen and his police officer brother on charges of “damaging an internet cable”.

The case comes in a series of multiple violations against Abbas as consequences to what he publishes on his blog http://misrdigital.blogspirit.com” where he monitors and exposes many crimes of torture committed by the government against citizens. The verdict is a threat to the blogger to force him stop blogging. Continue reading ‘Wael Abbas, World Blogging Forum member, sentenced in Egypt’

At a first glance, I’m almost sure that 2010 will be the year of media buying agencies in Romania.

The fragmentation is amazing and probably the client service and decent rebates will decide who will perform the best in 2010. One thing is for sure: the media agencies will have a head start when negotiating buying terms for this year.

I’m planning to write a post in a near future about the latest movements on the market and about the surprising situations we’ll encounter this year.

In a nutshell: although there is a very fragmented market (with more sales agencies in 2010), the number of high-traffic Romanian websites remains constant – so are the budgets

Gabriel Boaca and Magdalena Zander (part of the executive management of Intact Interactive in 2009) announced yesterday the launch of Digital4, a local advertising sales agency focused only on independent websites.

A very good start-up idea but very difficult for 2010 – I’m more than sure that their experince in ARBOmedia, Boom and Intact Interactive will help them boost things up by Q4 in a very complicated and fragmented Romanian online market.

Congratulations for the start-up and wish them many campaigns in 2010!

Silviu Ispas, local managing director of ARBOmedia.net and EMI Romania, decided to leave the company starting with 31st of march 2010.

ARBOmedia is already looking for a replacement for Romanian operations but until then, mr. Thomas Landolt, board president of ARBOmedia AG will supervise the operations (media buying and publishing) on the local market.

Fun Intro – Nikolas Sarkozy viral video on eRepublik - Spain Vs France:

Alexis Bonte, one of the most enthusiastic European Internet entrepreneurs, published a blog post today celebrating the 1 millionth eRepublik citizen.

I remember that when I first met Alexis he was really excited about eRepublik.com and about the project (If I remember well, it was before the investment in Trilulilu).  eRepublik.com was launched in november 2007 by  Romanian entrepreneur George Lemnaru – the start-up had a 200.000 eur investment made by Alexis Bonte and I remember that after a short time the success was so big that the servers needed a fast upgrade.

Today, after counting 1.000.000 users, I have to congratulate George and Alexis and their investors (for being inspired) and hope to see the number at least double by the end of 2010 Continue reading ‘eRepublik reached 1.000.000 users in december 2009′

Trafic.ro is the oldest and one of the most trusted audit websites for Romanian webmasters as it displays statistics for over 45.000 internet websites. The service measures Romanian Internet traffic since 2000 and in the last year they started to display an open strategy built around its community.

As we speak, Romanian online advertising has 2 accepted official measuring tools (the other one is SATI/BRAT) but trafic.ro still has the psychologycal advantage of being the first on the market, a better technical application for measuring and delivering data in realtime and it is more cost effective than SATI. Continue reading ‘Internet Event: API.trafic.ro Awards’

I’ve been using Windows Mobile since 2005 and at that time I had SPB Pocket Plus installed on my SPV M1000 (great phone, still working). Meanwhile I switched to HTC (Diamond was a terrible experience) and Samsung Omnia (the config was quite ok with 8 GB storage, 5 megapixel camera, etc).

I like Windows Mobile because of the advanced features (mainly agenda & connectivity) and because the system is very often installed on great business smartphones (I only have the high-end experience). SPB Mobile Shell for Windows Mobile is an app that helps the average user to get more from the phone and OS - great looks, very stable, easy-to-use and fun:

Maybe this is why the app received 28+ positive reviews and awards last year but you’ll have to install it in order to see how great it is!

PS: for iPhone users – I hear you now have copy/paste function! Amazing!

I’ve noticed Kaspersky Antivirus getting involved in a very interesting community campaign. I like it when people say that Christmas should last longer, therefore having a green Santa in January is always fun.

If you enter MosKraciunVerde.ro you still have the chance to win one of the 111 special prizez – the big prize: lifetime subscribtion to Kaspersky Antivirus

Matthias Lüfkens had a fast post on twitter and made me remind what I was doing 20 years ago and how Romania changed in the last two decades. I followed the link Matthias gave on twitter and discovered the video tour of the Parliament, a must see if you’re in Romania or in Bucharest for the holidays.

Standing 84m above ground level on 12 floors, the building has long been shrouded in mystery, rumour and hyperbole. Originally designed to house almost all the organs of the communist state, it today plays host to the Romanian parliament and a modern, well equipped conference centre, as well as Romanias Museum of Contemporary Art. Much of the building, however, remains unused.  Join the official tour of Romania’s most famous building with tour guide Raluca Mitu. [full article and video tour here]

For more about the key sites in Bucharest check out Bucharest In Your Pocket.

Right now I’m in Paris but a few friends from Romania told me that they were working on a report for a non-governmental organization monitoring antisemitism online.

The mind blowing thing is that they also check to see who is financing bloggers of websites that promote racial hatered and antisemitism and that they discovered Vodafone paid advertising on blog pages: Continue reading ‘Vodafone Romania suspected of sponsoring antisemitism and discrimination’

Right now, at LeWeb, there is a fireside Chat with Nathalie Kosciusko Morizet, France Minister of State to the Prime Minister, with responsibility for Forward Planning, Assessment of Public Policies and Development of the Digital Economy (Secrétaire d’Etat chargée de la Prospective et du Développement de l’économie numérique) and Loic Le Meur. Continue reading ‘The French Ministry of Internet – e-gov study case’

Augustin Roman replaced Sorin Danilescu as the General Manager of Intact Interactive, the sales agency part of Intact Media Group.

Sorin Danilescu manged the company and the Internet division of Intact Media Group for 4 months and from now on he will be focused on developing new websites for the group. Continue reading ‘Augustin Roman, The New General Manager at Intact Interactive’

The biggest internet event in Russia (more than 5.000 participants) is the Russia Internet Forum. As I’m surfing their website I can only think that It’s a good idea to register for 2010 – www.rif.ru. Continue reading ‘Russia Internet Forum – the biggest internet forum in Russia’

If you read my blog on regular basis you probably know that the Russian Internet market is very interesting for me and right now I’m very excited to hear and meet the “rock stars” of the Russian Internet at LeWeb – the panel is moderated by Jennifer L. Schenker, (Founder & Editor-in-Chie Informilo.com)

Panelists – Russia roundtable:

• - Sasha Galitsky, Almaz Capital Partners
• - Bernard Lukey, CEO, OZON.ru
• - Edward Shenderovich, Managing Director, Kite Ventures
• - Arkady Volozh, CEO, Yandex Continue reading ‘Russia Roundtable at LeWeb in Paris’

Right now at LeWeb, Ryan Sarver (Twitter) made a very important announcement for the developers all over the world – The first Twitter Developer Conference will take place in San Francisco in 2010.

More details on the official website: http://chirp.twitter.com/

After the guest speakers and events this morning, here are other interesting picks for the rest of the day (if you’re not in Paris you can check out the live video stream on the official website): Continue reading ‘LeWeb 2009 Agenda – very interesting to follow today’

Jack Dorsey (Twitter founder) is now on stage #LeWeb and speaks about how their users are redefining twitter every day

The live demo of the day – The Square is a hardware and software app used to communicate with the payment networks to complete transactions and transforms you phone into a POS. Continue reading ‘Jack Dorsey (Twitter founder) – “The Square” live demo, LeWeb 2009, Paris’

This morning I’m doing live blogging from Paris – Over 2000 participants from 46 countries are here for the #1 European Internet event.

• Video – Live Streaming – www.leweb.fr
• You can follow me on Twitter

Next week in Bucharest – the biggest b2b event in Romania: BIZ DAYS.

The 7th edition of Romania’s Leading Business-to-Business trade show will be all about change. The world is changing, market conditions are changing, and the business world is changing along with them. More than 3.000 participants, entrepreneurs, business executives and professionals from all major industries, as well as international speakers will discuss and analyze the leading trends of events that will shape the business world of tomorrow. Continue reading ‘Zilele Biz 2009′

I was blogging yesterday about Valentin Petcu (Romanian blogger also known as Zozo) and about his actions against Romanian companies, brands and people. He is often paid to do this and he has to invent crazy stories. Because of my open criticism regarding his lack of ethics and the heavy use of blackmailing, unverified information and rumours he decided to start a negative campaign against me. He was encouraged because of the NDAs I’ve signed and because of my lack of reaction in the previous scandals (when he and his associates tried to involve me).

I’m writing this post in order to explain a situation and to present the truth as Valentin Petcu is paid to spread rumors and has a secret agenda. Also because I met a a business partner today and he asked me about Real Ad SRL? a Romanian company I knew nothing about. Continue reading ‘Real Ad SRL – the company’

Based on Google search:

• 1. Traian Băsescu 38%
• 2. Mircea Geoană 23%
• 3. Crin Antonescu 19%
• 4. Sorin Oprescu 16%.

Full article on Money.ro – very interesting research.

Intro Note: I really don’t like scandals, propaganda, and lies – I usually don’t comment on my blog when people attack me but this time I had a strong reason to expose the lies, blackmailing and pressures the team from ASLS faced from a local Romanian blogger when working for WBF2009.

Vali Petcu (also known as Zoso), is a Romanian blogger aspiring to get “A listed”. He claims to be one of the most read bloggers in Romania but the problem he had when got out of trafic.ro (official auditing of Romanian websites) was that he had only 200 readers and a very strong long tail (people searching for Romanian TV star, Mircea Badea, trivia, sexual content, etc). This is also a reason for keeping out of SATI (also auditing romanian traffic).

On the other hand, Vali Petcu is in the “dark” side of the blogging business, blackmailing companies and using a network of blogs for attacking companies and people. I had a strong research on the matter as I was on of the attacked persons. As a normal person, I had to ask myself “why?” and tried to understand who is this guy and what is he planning with his network. Continue reading ‘Thoughts after #WBF2009 – explanations on how some Romanian bloggers hurt their ego’

Great news for the people around the world that didn’t make it to Bucharest at the World Blogging Forum: you can watch the event live on the Internet if you click here.

The video broadcast is powered by MediaDirect one of the most advanced companies in Romania specialized in online video delivery.

Click here to dowload a very interesting presentation about MediaDirect and their video delivery platform.

I’m at the World Blogging Forum in the Palace of The Parliament and doing live blogging

Romanian president Traian Basescu was the surprise of the day (at least for me) because he came to a blogging event and had a very interesting speech about new media, twitter, blogging and online journalism.

Very surprised to hear Traian Basescu talking about online advertising on blogs about the twitter revolution in Moldova or about the Internet attacks in Estonia and Georgia. Continue reading ‘Romanian President, Traian Basescu speaking about Internet at WBF’

Ritchie blogs about the first day of  World Blogging Forum 2009 – impressions about Bucharest and Romania: Continue reading ‘World Blogging Forum, Bucharest, Romania – Day1′

The famous Romanian sociology professor, Prof. Dr. Septimiu Chelcea, surpised me in a pleasant way by launching his blog: http://septimiuchelcea.wordpress.com/ (it’s not a fake blog you can read the confirmation here). Continue reading ‘Prof. Dr. Septimiu Chelcea sharing his wisdom online’

This is the only confirmed news

Visual Soft SRL the company that owns and operates Autovit.ro, the biggest auto classiffieds website in Romania was sold to MIH Allegro BV, European subsidiary of Naspers South Africa. Continue reading ‘Autovit.ro sold to MIH Allegro BV, European subsidiary of Naspers South Africa’

On the 16th I had a short post and a teaser about Orange and their blogging platform in Israel. Dvorit Shargal, the famous israeli blogger attending World Blogging Forum in Bucharest has the blog hosted on a public Orange platform.

Today you can check out the Romanian version of the blogging platform: http://www.orangeblog.ro/

Today I had a look at the media partners covering the World Blogging Forum and I just noticed that blomedia.pl has 1,590,000 unique users and over 6,565,000 page views (data for September 2009, Source: Google Analytics). Continue reading ‘1.500.000 monthly visitors on blomedia.pl’