Romanian Internet users: only 3.5 million

The estimate of the total number of Romanian Internet users has decreased dramatically, due to the new system of measurement introduced by Trafic.ro [ro], the unofficial audience top of the Romanian sites. According to a Trafic.ro press release, the users accessing Romanian sites from Romania (unique visitors per week) was 3.539.507 between February 26 and March 4.

Previous figures indicated a total of 7 million users, but on a monthly basis. On March 1st, Trafic.ro introduced a new system, eliminating the duplication and thus dropping the total number of “absolute unique visitors” per week at 3.5 million.

Official data about Internet traffic will be available during the second half of 2007. Earlier this year, Spring GmbH [en] won the auction that designated the company to provide official audience data. The audit will be supervized by BRAT [ro], the Romanian ABC.

Romanian on-line advertising market predictions: 8-9 millions seem likely

Cristi Manafu asked and got [ro] from several well-known on-line managers, predictions about the net volume of the on-line advertising market. The predictions vary betwen 6 and 11 milion euros. Bogdan Gavrilă took over the managers’ statements and analyzed [en] them in a knowledgeable and convincing way. From Bogdan’s analysis, it seems likely that the market will be 8-9 million in 2007.

One of the main media brokers on the market, ARBOmedia, recently released [en] a presentation where the cash in 2006 was stated to be 5,5 million euro, with a forecast of 8,4 million euro in 2007.

Spring GmbH will officially audit the Romanian Internet

Spring GmbH [EN] has been designated as the company that will audit the traffic on the Romanian Internet sites, at the BRAT (Romanian ABC) [RO] Internet division’s meeting on Thursday night. Spring GmbH won in the final against Gemius (Poland) and Weborama (France).

The implementation of the technical system will follow. Traffic figures will be available at half-2007.

Until now, unofficial figures were available on Trafic.ro, a top of the Romanian sites owned by Boom/Netbridge, one of the big media brokers and software developers on the Romanian Internet market.

The Romanian Internet advertising market: 5,5 million euros in 2006, 8,4 million forecast for 2007

The Romanian Internet advertising market is estimated in 2007 at 8,4 million euros net, according to the “Internet Advertising 2007″ forecast of ARBOmedia [RO], the most important Internet ad broker.

The Internet advertising expenditures grew significantly during the last years in Romania. 2006 was 5,5 million euros, while 2005 had been only 2.5 million. According to the mentioned source, 2005 was the year the market crossed the 1 % of the entire market limit.

The first year included in the ARBOmedia forecast is 1999, with 100.000 euros: | More…

Romanian mogul acquires four new titles

The ‘Catavencu’ print Group, belonging to the controversial Romanian mogul Sorin Ovidiu Vîntu, officially stated it acquired four new titles in its portofolio. ‘Bilant’, an economic monthly, IQAds.ro, a media and advertising Internet site, ‘J’Adore’, a shopping magazine, and ‘Psihologia Azi’, a psychology monthly, will raise the total of titles in ‘Catavencu’ to 14.

‘Catavencu’ was taken over by Vîntu in may, 2006. The transaction is part of the so-called oligarchs assault on the media market. Dinu Patriciu, another controversial billionare, also started to build a media empire earlier this year, while Dan Voiculescu and Adrian Sîrbu, the other two big media owners, have also been active on the market lately.

• Romanian oligarchs slow down their assault of the media market [EN, Comanescu.ro]

The Beatles again: Within you, without you / Tomorrow Never Knows

What is interesting, in addition to the video itself:

• promotes the new ‘Love’ remixes The Beatles album. The video was posted by ‘TheBeatlesOfficial [EN]‘ on YouTube and the link was promoted with the official TheBeatles.com [EN] newsletter
• the video is heavily reminiscent of the WMP/Winamp/iTunes visualisations.

Romanian media mogul continues expansion on the Internet

Adrian Sîrbu’s Internet company, Media Pro Interactiv, launched on Monday Omsaracombogat.ro [RO], the site of a Romanian sitcom broadcast on Sîrbu’s TV station, Pro TV. Omsaracombogat.ro is the fifth spinoff of a Sîrbu television show launched since the beginning of the autumn.

The site includes some picures, news, a making of section, a blog and a “Downloads” section, where some pictures can be found. | More…

3 new spin-offs of the most popular Romanian Internet site

The “Gazeta Sporturilor” sports sites ring includes three new projects, Blogdeliceu.ro, Pariori.ro and Suporteri.ro, wrote Gusti Roman, the executive director of Gazeta Sporturilor, on his blog. The first one targets high school users, translates ‘high-schoolblog.ro’ and will provide a blog to all the 11 high schools included into a soccer competition. Pariori.ro will provide on-line betting facilities, while Suporteri.ro (’Suporters.ro’), to be launched on Friday, will include a soccer forum.

The three new sites are included into a spin-offs cloud built around the very succesful GSP.ro, the site of one of the two big sports newspapers in Romania, rated the first in terms of audience by Trafic.ro, a well-known public traffic measurement service. The cloud includes team communities such as Stelisti.ro or Dinamovisti.ro and blogs of famous sports journalists.

Local association aiming to become an IAB Europe affiliate

The first general assembly of the IAB Romania Association took place on Thursday, November 23rd. The Association aims to affiliate itself to IAB Europe and to solve problems such as overlayers proliferation on Romanian sites. The first assembly resulted in establishing the management structure of the Association. | More…

Experimental site of well-known satirical weekly

Academia Catavencu started Facemcatavencu.ro [RO] (’WemakeCatavencu.ro’), an experimental site intended as the making-of of the magazine’s site, Catavencu.ro [RO], which is also to be launched soon. Catavencu.ro has not been redesigned in several years and offers most of its content on a per-pay basis. A source from Academia Catavencu told Comanescu.ro that the magazine’s site only has 200 to 300 subscribers, most of whom are from the Romanian diaspora.

Facemcatavencu.ro will be turned into an Internet club after Catavencu.ro’s relaunch.

Academia Catavencu is a popular Romanian political satirical weekly that sells between 40 and 50,000 copies per day. The publication has recently been taken over by Sorin Ovidiu Vintu, one of the controversial Romanian billionaires who got massively involved in the media market in 2006.