Updated April 16, 2008

   The number of active bloggers has reduced for the last half-year, and the growth rates of blog-area have fallen by half as said in the Yandex company report. One of the reasons of the interest decline to blogs is popularity growth of online communities, such as Odnoklassniki.ru. The interest decline does not affect yet the blog-services advertising revenue; according to 2008 results they total $34-36 million.

   According to research data made by Yandex company, the growth of the Russian-speaking blog-area has considerably slowed down: the number of blogs in Ru.net has upped by 23% and attained 3,8 million of online diaries for a half-year (November, 2007-April, 2008). Since the growth rates of Ru.net blog-area totaled 74% within the November, 2006-April, 2007 term, and within the following half-year – 55%. The growth rates of the majority large blog-services (including LiveJournal, LiveInternet and LovePlanet) have also fallen as compared to November last year.

   First since September, 2006 the share of active bloggers (that have at least 5 posts and were updated at least within last 3 months) has also reduced. If around one third of authors have been writing in their online diaries in November, 2007, so now it is only one-fifth. The share of active blogs on such large blog-hostings as Damochka.ru and Rambler Planet (more than 150 000 diaries per each) is only 3% and 8% respectively. "The absolute number of active bloggers has reduced despite the total amount of diaries growth. Their amount on LiveJournal has fallen from 240 000 to 230 000 since autumn, 2007, on LiveInternet – from 170 000 to 160 000. One can assume that now some users prefer to write and communicate not in blogs, but in online communities", sums up Yandex PR director Mikhail Ushakov.

   Growth rates decline of the Russian blog-area is the natural phenomenon, considers the head of SUP Fabrik blog service Anton Nosik. "Any media has the limit of an audience increase. It is the amount of the Russian-speaking Internet users in our case. When the market has attained the definite age, it can not grow as quickly as when the blogs amount has been numbered in thousands. The size of blog-area audience is more important than the blogs’ number. According to our data, around 1,5 million blogs is registered in the Russian segment of LiveJournal now. Moreover, the audience that reads them numbers 9 million people".

   "There is online communities ‘boom in Russia now, two years ago the analogical situation was with blogs. For example, the audience of the most popular Odnoklassniki.ru online community grows by 40% monthly", says Mindshare Interaction chief manager Yulia Udovenko. She reminds that according to Komkon data, the percent of users who register, but do not use an Internet resource within a month, totals around 6-7% on Odnoklassniki.ru, and around 4% on vkontakte.ru. By Mrs. Udovenko estimations, in 2009 this index will not exceed 15-20%. "Now blog-area moves from the quantitative increase stage to the high-quality stage. Next year the analogical processes will be observed in online communities", Mrs. Udovenko sums up, and marks that growth decline will not affect the returns of online communities and blog-hostings. Now 15 million users are registered on Odnoklassniki.ru, and around 11 million on vkontakte.ru community. According to Mrs. Udovenko estimations, by last year results the online communities have gained around $1,5 million only, and this year the advertising revenue on Odnoklassniki.ru portal will exceed $10 million. By Finam Company estimations, in 2007 an advertising volume in blog-area has totaled around $20 million.

"If last year an advertising in blog-area has been growing at the market level (around 100% a year), so there is a risk now it will fall behind it", says Finam-Information technologies fund expert Leonid Delicyn. According to Finam forecast, in 2008 blog-area advertising revenues will total $34-34 million.

Russian-speaking blog-area growth