The Vkontakte social network has bought the vk.com domain name.

(Kazan, September 8, Tatar-inform). The Vkontakte social network has bought the vk.com domain name.

According to the Vkontakte executive director Lev Leviev, the company intends to develop abroad and will by October launch the vk.com site in 12 languages. The VK combination will be its international brand, he said. Leviev did not disclose the sum of the deal, reports Vedomosti citing the GoDaddy US-based registrar.

The MySpace Russia ex-general director Alexander Turkot estimates the purchase at tens of thousands of US dollars, while the .ru domain coordination centre director Andrey Kolesnikov says the price can be $100,000 at most.

Vkontakte is one of Russia’s largest social networks. According to statistics, provided by the site, it has over 42 million users. By now, the website is available in 4 languages, including Russian, English, Ukrainian and Belarusian.

Meanwhile, the world’s largest social networks including Facebook and MySpace are available in various language versions to users across the world. Facebook, whose audience is 225 million users, offers a selection of 63 languages, while MySpace (130 million) has 33 language versions.

The launch of Vkontakte in more language is a move to enhance the image, thinks the Social Networks communication agency managing partner Denis Terekhov. He does not rule out that the purchase of a domain in the .com ozone is part of a pre-sale preparation. No sale has so far been definitely negotiated, said a source close to the Vkontakte shareholders.
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