Polpred.com. Russian mass media review

Polpred.com is the full database of Russian mass media, best subjects from news agencies and business press. We work with 1450 academic and public libraries of Russia, CIS & Baltic states. For five years they downloaded more than 35,000,000 articles from www.polpred.com. Each day about 8,000 readers visit our site, every 2nd visitor is from outside Russia.

Why collaborate with polpred.com, which is in Russian?

• Maybe you have students from Russian Federation or Russian-speaking students who can learn some issues on Russian economy from polpred.com;
• Some universities have departments of Slavic languages, so polpred.com may help students to learn Russian by reading modern articles on business & economy;
• Russia is not among the best markets in the world but some events happening there can influence on the world economy
• Besides you can use Google-translator and have a brief look at what has happened in Russia today

• What is your mega resource for, if there are Interfax / RIA Novosti / ITAR-TASS / Regnum / Rosbalt?

Editorial office of polpred.com business portal produces four basic types of information products:

(1) comprehensive feed of events and comments, full texts of the most interesting reports from leading news agencies and serious newspapers;

(2) three dozen sites specializing on specific newsgroups are formed on the base of this mass media and analytic feed;

(3) the feed provides one-click access to each of 200 polpred sites about countries;

(4) telephone directories, repositories of official sites and internet services.

Readers take an interest in general newsfeed, some prefer information about specific countries or concern themselves with branch articles, and others need help with foreign sites. This is what quite an ambitious program of polpred.com World reference service mean.

Our most interesting offer now is database of manually collected publications from 600 mass media resources for the period of 15 years. Editors of polpred.com select various interpretations of the most important stories depending on the journalist skill and prestige of his edition. The reader finds it convenient to learn different points of view.

No wonder, the output repositories of above-mentioned news agencies are not interrelated - they are rivals. Besides, information inside each news agency does not make well-organized database. On the contrary, our subject and resource-heading list includes thousands of positions, the most important ones are specially marked.

We began as analytic department and published foreign economic yearbooks on countries and branches. We produced 1,500 books in paper cover and pdf-format. Then, a new way of simultaneous search and editing/selecting information came into sight – online database in the Internet. Do you know what it takes to make a report on China economy if there are thousands of pages in each of our yearbooks? Our present database includes all you need and it provides required information much faster than paper editions or pdf-versions. On the main page of portal, each of 25 branch groups has a dozen of sub brunches. All a subscriber has to do is to select sub branches from branch list.

Branches in alphabetical order: from agricultural industry to power engineering; information is renewed next day / week; the editor assigns a number to each selected publication according to the heading list, then correlates it to the subject / date / country / federal district of RF / source and includes it in our online database.

Agencies and newspapers compete with each other in the time race, whereas we have our own data repository and we do not need 15 daily issues with extra comments covering just one important story. We prefer final or interim material with maximum details.

• Your site on metallurgy. Who needs opinions expressed by amateurs and merchants, popularizers and politicians?

Metallurgist should know how mass media report the news about the industry including commercial aspect; component manufacturers can find it useful to learn about innovations in the industry as well. Visit our site on metallurgy, it includes information about scrap collectors and oligarchs such as Lisin / Rashnikov, review of industry in South Africa, rare-earth materials in dozens of states, ecological and social problems of the top metallurgical companies.

Readers have a right to know how Kevlar, ceramics and Nano-evaporation influence the market. An executive / a politician should remember that there are a small number of countries capable of manufacturing competitive avionics and power plants. Russia is not among the leaders in that field.

Our portal is arranged as an economic newspaper repository, a popular science journal, a commodity exchange bulletin and telephone directory ‘who is who’. You can all information you need at polpred.com much faster compared to leading data search services.

• There are plenty of competitors such as mass media aggregators ‘Integrum’, ‘East View Information Services’, ‘Factiva’, ‘Medialogia’. What is your niche?

These huge media monitoring and analysis systems are useful. The first three ones offer readers full texts from news agencies and newspapers whereas we collect just a couple of the best articles and texts from civil servants.

Medialogia uses mathematic methods to reach perfection but without daily personal care browser settings will not work. Hardly do all readers want people want to know how often minister N has been mentioned in Russian mass media but you can watch his interview and speeches at polpred.com as well. Although bots are engaged in online trade platforms, situation rooms of secret services and governments, but they cannot replace human traders and editors.

• Polpred.com began with yearbooks and country-editions. What is the purpose of turning from foreign economy to Mass Media Reviews and “world reference service”?

They will set  up  state  reference services, so-called electronic government in our country. In western countries, an archivist / a librarian is a member of social process, whether it is notarial system, editors’ office, governmental department, higher educational institution or a big company. During 20 years of freedom, subscription for libraries, Russian mass media foreign correspondent service and local press in territorial subjects of RF have almost ceased to be in Russia. Why do US departments and Congressional Library take care of providing billions of people with online information in English all over the world?

Reference information online is important to students, consumers and all citizens. Social networks and Wikipedia cannot replace the governmental efforts in the field of education and information. At polpred.com, we started to collect not only world information on foreign trade but just on economy in Russian. Russian Internet is still undeveloped because Russian government does not take part in setting open reference data repository.

• Your social network activity, multimedia-style information and plenty of other services - how does it go with paid portal with limited access?

Many people are interested in information. Before going to Deauville and Bordeaux, France, a person wonders if there are any sandy beaches on the coast. And he also wants to see mine Raspadskaya on the screen of the monitor because he trades with it. Business requires developed reference service. After a hundred years of work in the USA, raw material price agency Platt turned into a price leader. The West knows about natural resources of Russia more than Russian geologists.

A Mexican / French newspaper reader knows about domestic situation in Russia more than we about those countries. A lot of non-classified reference information from Russian diplomats and trade representatives remains unclaimed. On the contrary, every piece of such information is put to use in the West and then becomes available for businessmen.

It is us who do all the work at polpred.com, and the information we collect is available to everyone free of charge. We charge our subscribers only for additional services on the principle of “all-in-one”. In any country, except Russia, one agency provides an exporter with information and consultation, credit and insurance. Thus, to meet WTO requirements Russian companies have yet to learn a lot, and we are going to help them in the economic study of countries – we are ready to explain, show and make calculations.    

• Rusophonia – world expansion of Russian mass media? Do you intend to facilitate reader’s work with big files of business reports in Russian?

Kremlin supports Russian scientific and cultural centers abroad. Russia seeks to preserve Russian language. The number of Russian speakers declines all over the world. Each second visitor logs to polpred.com from other places but not Russia; various independent web counters indicate that the first place among foreign visitors belongs to Ukraine or the USA. All leading higher educational institutions of post-soviet republics enjoy full access to data repository of polpred.com Mass Media Review, and more than a million articles are downloaded a year.

Many people need to know Russian points of view on economic issues. Business contacts with Russia will be more effective after your acquaintance with polpred.com. In due course, polpred.com will offer a selection of main news on post-soviet subjects in English and some other languages.

• What do fellow newsmen say about intellectual property right since you trade their information?

Some editions even get surprised at learning that they are not on our list and call us. The value of the news goes down very fast just a day / week after the first publication. 95% of information can be used without permission from mass media agencies. We provide links to information sources, and again our news list is included in ‘For libraries’ section. We understand the social role of our project. Our main audience is people from higher educational institutions who need to make a report on a country / branch without being accused of plagiarism. As for libraries, paid subscription is luxury even for those which have already got used to polpred.com data repository. We do not switch polpred.com since we feel for the students and our relations with libraries.

Outside information is on open access at polpred.com. Fee is charged for data repository service: (1) heading list, newsfeed of full text reports that can be separated and converted into Word; (2) telephone directory in Excel format with names, birth dates and positions; (3) analytic data. Although newspaper Web-masters provide free access to articles, but the same articles can downloaded from polpred.com much faster and free of charge, as well.  

• Is monetization of the Internet services possible in principle?

We have already formed target audience that includes students and young educators, and millions of them enjoy full access to polpred.com. Thousands of them use this data resource permanently. Up to 10,000 articles are downloaded a day. And we have just started to work with the majority of higher educational institutions. We have already sent to libraries abroad our proposal on free trial access.

The audience of polpred.com will attract sponsors and advertisers. Millions of students will remember the company which presented them with subscription to Mass Media Review. 

Paid subscription is necessary even to those higher educational institutions that have for years enjoyed free trial access from maximum number of their computers installed in all educational buildings and dormitories, affiliates and subordinate agencies. The readers who pay for services of polpred.com, also get consultations as well as extra advantages. It may take a reader more than a year to get used to Russian business mass media. Only after that a student may understand that polpred.com saves time as compared to the other mass media.

August 1, 2012   www.polpred.com

I. Internet-based business report repository. Launched in 1998, informational and analytic portal has transformed into the largest synoptic web-repository of CIS which includes half a million best articles of business mass media and world press agencies in Russian. Each day, more than a dozen editors of data repository sort out new materials according to heading lists: 26 groups of industries, 230 countries and regions, 8 federal districts of RF, 600 sources, three languages.

Being launched as commercial at first, the project has turned into educational and instructional on the whole. Our audience consists primarily of senior high school students, postgraduates of Russian and CIS universities and colleges as well as young library members. Millions of students in CIS and Baltic countries have access to full-text data repository of polpred.com Mass Media Review, and dozens of thousands have already become familiar users of the resource. Our main goal is support of Russian speakers all over the world via large national and academic libraries; we have already mailed our proposals on cooperation to hundreds of universities of the USA, European Union and China.

Since August 1, 2009 the editorial office has granted full access free of charge to all members of academic and public libraries of RF, CIS and Baltic countries just with use of login/password. Before August 1, 2012 577 libraries had already submitted to us complete lists of IP-addresses down to dormitories and university affiliates.

By August 1, 2012 members of 115 libraries in Ukraine that work with us have already downloaded 602,755 articles; members of 42 libraries in Kazakhstan – 178,635 articles; members of 40 libraries in Belarus – 223,435 articles; members of 667 libraries in Russia – 3,010,363 articles. There are also 10 countries with low visiting activity; libraries do not have enough funds for e-resources.

With the help of our resource that is synoptic in nature and based on wide range of resources of various genres, young Russian-speakers take educational and informational materials in their own way, reasoning and logic. Median age of polpred.com reader is 20-30.

Serving the most educated young Russian speakers and regarding their preferences help us get an idea about the audience. According to the readers preferences, the greatest demand is information about Russia, then the USA and China. Quality economic information on technical platform of polpred.com is popular with students. Whatever country, industry, and federal district of RF or Russia on the whole you choose on polpred.com; any of its 300 sites has become the richest in content in Russian internet.

Polpred.com broadcasts consolidating point of view of Russia on events in the world and CIS, provides convenient format for use of business and political mass media of the world and Russia in education and work. Each second visitor of polpred.com lives outside Russia. Each day up to 5,000 visitors log to our site from libraries or even “streets”.

We serve 976 libraries in Russia and abroad but there are 600 libraries which do not use their access to polpred.com on various reasons. We intend to increase the number of subscribed libraries.

II. Expenditures for 2012 and 2013. Multimedia style implies that the one can get all business information on various countries in different languages just at one ‘counter’ of the world reference service polpred.com. Expenditures on the areas of focus: Business mass media review; internet service repositories; user consultations; telephone database of civil servants and businessmen; auction and exhibition center for exporters; access for smart phones and tablet PCs; 30,000 no-fiction legal books in English for free; data repository of mass media publications on each of eight federal districts of RF; video information www.polpred.com on the world investment objects; the rating of data repository materials for users’ convenience.

LLC POLPRED Reference Books neither has bank credits nor joint parties. Details concerning the project can be found on the main page of polpred.com together with comments from civil servants and journalists. The next step of the project after libraries is to persuade the companies in the advantage of subscription to electronic business mega-newspaper of polpred.com with repository.

We are 15 years old

Our staff-members manually collect the best publications. Since 1998 business mass media repository at polpred.com has been filled with data in Russian from the whole world, so too with world library of official sites in English. Now we start to collect articles in English and French – to know what write about us. We are going to collect articles in the languages of the other countries that have their correspondents in Moscow.

The vast majority of editions declare agreement to reprint materials with reference to the primary source of information. They do it long after the publication of the information, thus there is no trade disadvantage for the authors. If there are news agencies that do not grant open access to their materials – we just conclude agreements with them. The outside information at polpred.com is free of charge; the customer pays for the number of services relating to the use of data repository.

Visitors from any educational institution who read the section “For libraries” can see the statistics of visits – where from / where to / when. We do not place any ads concerning sports, history, elite art, literature, textbooks and science. We offer mass media opinions on branches, we select valid data.

We know what polpred.com readers want: what sites they often visit; what subjects they prefer; what subjects they are interested in. To leading Russian and foreign higher educational institutions we offer expanded universal news-feed with data repository as supplementary source the humanitarian and technical researches.

Polpred.com achievements for 15 years.

• Whileworking in unusual for Russia field of business yearbooks in 1990s, we started to form database which enables the reader considerably reduce the time and efforts to read mass media information. As for the quality of information content, our ‘boutique’ competes with the other data repositories in Russian.

Internet news-aggregators production cannot match manual work which is done at editorial office. Belkovskiy and Sturua, MK staff-writers, may have good and average publications. We do not put average publications on our web-feed. We offer hundred thousands of publications whereas news-aggregators offer millions of them, and that hinders the search.

We provide full text opinions by news-makers and analysts taken from various sources. We look for press-releases, reports on hot issues; mark with asterisk the most important publications in mass media, interviews or articles by people of name, authoritative civil servants and political writers.

• Apart from uniform web-feed, our data repository includes sites on each country or area, as well as 26 branches. News published on our site are quite enough to make each our site on a branch or a country the biggest in the Russian internet. If Russian reader finds the information in Russian not complete, there are sites in English. We provide businessmen with the list of addresses of trade representations / Chamber of Commerce and Industry / banks / consulting services that can consult him for free. 

• Multimedia character and multi-language nature are typical to the style of information provided by polpred.com. Each story is offered in Russian, but addition in English can be included in the list of official sites on economy of all the countries and transnational concerns. Photo and video repositories; the access to foreign mass media resources and non-fiction books is easy with a click via polpred.com and toll-free until authors charge for services.

• Analytic desk of polpred.com has been developing reference repository on foreign trade, regional geography, industrial and innovation policy for 15 years. We keep a close watch on business publications on Russian news, consulting and investment site of CIS and non-CIS states. There is a block of updated data in Russian and English to help small and medium business in Russia, foreign investors as well as importing and exporting companies. These amenities are on a paying basis.

We have collected mass media opinions and analytic materials concerning success stories of foreign direct investors in regions of Russia, and, in turn, we know how Russians make their business in each country abroad. We have detailed reviews of countries and branches in Russian and English, and we also know the expert community in Russia and abroad.

We look for sponsors and co-investors for participation in world Russian project purposed on two thousand academic and national libraries. If there is a donor for the project supporting two thousand libraries in the world with the digest of Russian mass media, our editorial office may reduce the price for full single repository subscription to 40 000 rubles a year. Youth elite will surely remember the name of the company-investor

Polpred.com production is yearbooks (paper cover and CD) on countries and industries have been in demand since 1998 via subscription agencies. Since 2009 our editorial office has been providing polpred.com production not only as yearbooks on countries and industries but also as online data repository of business mass media.