Well-known Russian Twitter users will head to the U.S. in late September to discuss the introduction of a Russian-language service with the staff of the popular micro-blogging website.
"Rumors about the introduction of a Russian-language Twitter interface have long been circulating. Members of the delegation are set to discuss the issue directly with the company's employees. We are convinced that the introduction of Russian will help to attract more users," blogger Anton Korobkov-Zemlyansky, who has more than 18,500 followers, told RIA Novosti.
The delegation will also include lawmaker Robert Shlegel (1,650 followers), a leader of the pro-Kremlin Nashi youth movement Maria Drokova (almost 3,500 followers) and popular blogger Yevgeny Kozlov (almost 68,000 followers).
A recent survey, conducted by the Kommersant publishing house and the comScore researcher, placed Twitter fifth in its rating of resources with the fastest growing Russian audience.
According to the survey, the Russian Twitter audience increased six-fold, to 1.78 million users per month in July 2009-July 2010.
Another research by comScore revealed that overall traffic of the website more than doubled in the reported period, from 44.5 to 93 million Internet users visiting Twitter.com.
The website's growing popularity among Russians may be due to President Dmitry Medvedev, who opened his Twitter account during his visit to the company's headquarters in Silicon Valley in June. He is among Russia's most popular Twitter users, with more than 83,000 followers, and the example inspired many Russian officials to create their own Twitter accounts.
MOSCOW, September 20 (RIA Novosti)
