Screen shot from the FINAM Investment Company website

It turns out that I can compose something that is appealing to readers all over the world, and they do read. I experimented with introducing different content that is off-topic (like “Golf in Russia”, and that seemed to be popular as well. Gradually, month by month, I am getting from 70 to 100 page loads a day with about a 20% monthly increase on my blog (my articles cross posted here at Russia Blog draw even more traffic than this). These numbers may seem modest, but in this business, it is not so much a question of how many people are reading as who is reading (see the list in the extended post).

My audience has turned out to be very interesting. I have a list below of visitors to the site that covers nearly the whole financial world. These are visitors logging on from corporate servers – not including readers coming from Internet service providers (ISPs) at home or on the go.

As a result of blogging, I am starting to receive different business proposals, and so far I have had six meetings with businessmen from Europe and America. What will be the results from these meetings? – that may be another story, but everyone of the new contacts I made through the blog had words of praise for my posts.

Today I am more and more convinced that the well known idea that blogging is turning into a valuable source of information is 100% true. I am seriously considering commercializing my efforts and creating a team that will cover Russian financial issues in greater detail. Of course, I am not pretending to be a guru and will not reinvent the wheel with a scaled-down Russian version of Bloomberg. But I think that even now, with the mainstream Western media starting to catch on to the story of Russia’s economic renaissance, there is still a niche and opportunity to start my own project. I am gaining some new ideas for innovations in this field, and time will tell if they bear fruit.

Here is a list of corporate servers representing visitors to my blog page in the last six months:

Accenture
Agefi
Agora Inc
AIG Brunswick Capital Management
Alba Alliance Bank
Alegro Capital Ltd
Allen And Overy
Ask Jeeves, Inc
Associated Press
Aton Capital – Moscow
Baillie Gifford & Co
Bank of New York
Bank of New York-Europe
Bank One Columbus N.A.
Banque Meespierson BGL S.A.
Banque Nationale De Paris – BN
Barclays Capital
Bear Stearns
Ben Scole Financial, Inc
Bigdough
Bloomberg financial markets service
Boston-Consulting
Brandsmiths Ltd
Brunswick Investment
Bryan Cave McPheeters & Mcrobe
CA IB International Markets Ltd
CDC Group PLC
Chadbourne-Parke
Charlemagne Capital Ltd
Chase Manhattan Bank
Chase Manhattan Bank N.A
Dow Chemical Company
Chris Fowler International Ltd
Citadel Investment Group
Citicorp Global Information Network
Rosbank Commercial Bank
Cowen & Co
Credit Lyonnais/Rusbank Moscow
Credit Suisse Group
Cushman & Wakefield
Deloitte & Touche UK
Denizbank A.S.
Deutsche Bank
Dexia Banque Internationale
Dion Kddi Corporation
U.S. Department of Commerce - International Trade Administration
Dow Jones-Telerate
Dresdner Kleinwort Wasserstein
Dresdner-Kleinwort-Benson
Eastman Kodak Company
The Economist
European Bank for Reconstruction and Development
Energis UK
Ernst & Young (CIS) B.V
EurasiaGroup
EuroMoney Institutional Investor
Farallon Capital Management
Farner PR und Consulting AG
Fascinations Toys and Gifts
FiberAccess Benq Europe B.v.S
Fidelity Investments USA
Financial Dynamics Inc.
Flextronics International of Sweden
Focus TV Produktions Gmbh
Foote Cone & Belding Communications
Fortress Investment Group LLC
General Electric
Glencore International AG
Global Diachirisi Kefalaion AE
Global Sage Ltd
GMD Solutions, Inc.
Goldman Sachs
Google
Government of Singapore Investments
Grant Thornton
Greenwich Capital Markets Inc.
Gustav W. Rogge Gmbh & Co.
KG Hagstromer & Qviberg Fondkomis
Hansabank Ltd.
Hemscott PLC Company
Hogg Robinson Financial Services
HSBC Bank PLC UK
HSBC Bank USA
Incepta Market Intelligence
Information Brooker
ING Group
Intellispace, Inc.
Interkom Audit
International Institute for Strategic Studies
International Finance Corporation (IFC)
International Monetary Fund
Japan Trade and Investment Insurance
Johns Hopkins University
JPMorgan
JSC Brokerage House
Otkritie, Kazimir Partners UK
Kempen & Co
Kissinger/McLarty & Associates consulting
KPMG - Moscow
Lazard Freres
Lehman Brothers
U.S. Library of Congress Information
Linebrook Ltd
London Business School
London School of Economics
London Stock Exchange (LSE)
M-M-Panet-Retail
Mastercard International LLC.
McKinsey Consulting
Mellon Bank
Merrill Lynch
Microsoft
The Mining Journal
Mizuho Corporate Bank
MKS Inc.
Moore Capital Management Inc.
Morgan Stanley
Moscow Narodny Bank Ltd
Nasdaq Stock Market
Netscape Communications Corp
Network of IBM E-Business Host
Nicholas Hall Company
Nikoil IBG E-Commerce
Nomura International - Hong Kong
Nomura Securities
Nordea
Northland Cable Television
Oaktree Capital
Octagon Capital Corp
Oliver Wyman & Co.
Omni Offices Inc.
Onvista Media Gmbh
OTP Bank Hungary
Overseas Private Investment Co.
Oxford University
Pacific Crest Securities Inc.
PaineWebber Group Inc.
Peter Hambro Mining
Petra Holdings LLC
PFC Energy
Piper & Marbury LLP
Precision Castparts Corporation
Price Waterhouse Coopers
Princeton University
Quintiles UK
Radio Free Europe
Raiffeisen Zentralbank of Austria
Raymond James Financial Inc.
Real Estate Board of New York
Regus Management Ltd
Roland Berger Strategy Consulting
Rosemount Capital
Royal Bank of Canada
Royal Bank of Scotland (RBS)
Russian Information Agency (RIA-Novosti)
SAC Capital
Salomon Smith Barney Inc.
Sandler O'Neill
Savannah College of Art and Design
Savv-Allen-Overy
SeverstalTrans Network
Shanghai Commercial & SavBank
Sita-Societe Internationale De
Skadden Arps Slate Meagher & F
Sovintel-PriceWaterhouse
Spencer Stuart
St. Louis University
Standard Bank (Asia) Ltd.
State Bank of India
Sterling Publishing Group PLC
Swedish Tax Administration
Swiss Federal Government
T. Rowe Price International Inc.
TBIH (Russia)
Tbilisi State University (Republic of Georgia)
St. Louis Trust Company
United States Supreme Court
Thomas Murray Ltd.
Thomson Financial
Thomson Information Services
Troika Dialog UK Ltd.
United States Department of State
UBS AG
UBS-London-PD
Unaxis Balzers AG
Unity Bank
Valley National Bank
VTX Services SA
Warsaw Stock Exchange
Washingtonspeakers.com
The George Washington University
Welch Capital Partners LLC
Westhouse Securities LLP
White and Case
The World Bank
Zwirn Capital Management

You can read the original post at Vladimir Kuznetsov's blog, Equity Financing in Russia. The views expressed in this post and on his blog are the personal opinions of Vladimir Kuznetsov, and are reproduced here solely for educational purposes. To read more Russia Blog posts about Russian capital markets, click on the finance section or type www.russiablog.org/finance in your web browser.