Kommersant, 31 may 2002

- The companies of the RBC holding were among the first who had started selling information on the Internet. How do you do this?

- You know, as an information agency, RBC had started selling information long before the Internet spread. This content was sold without the Internet. We started using it as a more convenient means for delivering information to our consumers. In 1998, RBC started publishing some information on its site for free. Currently, we are using both ways - we both sell information and publish it in free access, getting income from advertising.

- Don't you want to make all services paid?

- No. The free access to a part of resources is necessary both for attracting advertising and for supporting our brand. The fact that four years ago we were the first to make access to news lines public, played one of the main roles in the promotion of the brand.

- Maybe, in this event you should make all the information free?

- This is about a niche. Paid content is designed for a specific and rather a small audience, who needs specific information and is ready to pay for it. First of all, it concerns 'business users' - legal entities. And the 'advertising' model is for the mass audience, which would be interesting for a certain circle of advertisers. Both models pay their ways.

- What is the proportion of the paid and the free content at RBC?

- The free content amounts to about 20 percent of the total information. It is general political and major business news, which is of interest for a wide audience. Paid access provides more information and more services. For example, a subscriber of a news line may customize news. The paid news line is more up-to-date while the free news items are published with a delay of 20-30 minutes.

- Are there projects, where the advertising model did not work and you had to look for another source of income?

- Once RBC bought the LGG.ru system of free hosting. First we expected this service to be an advertising model. But when we calculated expenses necessary for supporting it, we realized that it would not work efficiently and decided to close the free hosting. We sent notification to all the clients that in a couple of months the service would be paid. About 4 percent of clients took up paid services. I believe this was a great success, as we expected only a half of this amount to agree to paying. The advertising model did not work with the job search site; it was not interesting for advertisers. Now we are figuring out what to do about this project. We are also considering the idea of creating a paid e-mail service. We do have a free Hotbox e-mail service, and it will remain free. A paid service will be a different project.

- Are you sure that it will be able to stand competition with free e-mail services? Can similar paid and free e-mail servers coexist at all?

- I am sure they can. Imagine, that you are offered a stable e-mail service with a twenty-four-hour technical support, large box volume and all kinds of services for $1 per month. Would you choose such a paid service?

- I have such an e-mail, for $1 per month.

- That's what I am talking about. There is demand for paid Internet services even if they have to compete with free ones.

- What are the conditions for the success of an Internet project of selling access to a site?

- You just need a business plan. In this respect, the Internet is like any other business. Such questions are emerging while launching any kind of project, and there are no universal patterns. A businessman looks at the figures describing the situation on the market, the expenses necessary for the implementation of the project, the incomes the project could bring. Of course, there is a risk to make a mistake in forecasts. But if the project does not work out, it is not a catastrophe. One should from the very beginning be aware of what one risks and when the project is to be stopped.

Nikolay Poluektov