Rumor: Russian Video Host RuTube To Be Acquired By Gazprom-Media for $20 Million

Yakov is reporting that Russian video host RuTube will be acquired by Gazprom-Media for $20 million dollars. RuTube was the first video community and hosting tool in Russia and is apparently doing 300 thousand daily users and more than 40 million video views per month.

Yakov notes regarding the deal, "RuTube was launched in November 2006 by a team inspired by Google’s acquisition of YouTube. The service was developed in the provincial Russian city of Oriol and financed by its private founders."

Mail.ru is the biggest competitor to RuTube and what’s interesting is that in my interview with Yandex, they noted that Mail.ru is the biggest competitor for the Yandex mail tool.

Here’s RuTube’s Alexa chart which also shows over 7 pageviews per user session:

(fyi, Yakov is the founder of Quintura, a current CN sponsor)