Official Russian version of Twitter to appear in two years.

MOSCOW, October 23 (Itar-Tass) -- The official Russian version of the
popular microblogging service Twitter will appear in 18 months to two
years' time, a well-known blogger and architect of many projects in the
Runet, Anton Korobkov-Zemlyansky, said in a roundtable discussion within
the framework of Russian Internet Week, which is being held these days at
the city's exhibition site Expocenter.
"Twitter will officially come to Russia in one and a half years, two
at the latest," he said. According to the expert, the domestic version
will differ from the American one basically by its Russian interface.
"The buttons that now have English names will be replaced," explained
Korobkov-Zemlyansky. A new interface is being developed, he said. The
process will take about six months and then the interface will be put to
test.
The website Twitter is a system of microblogs and it allows users to
post short messages (up to 140 characters) that can be sent not only via
the Internet, but also via SMS. This year the number of visitors to
Twitter worldwide exceeded two million.
Russians in Twitter, according to Korobkov-Zemlyansky, number about
500 thousand, of whom 150 thousand are active users. Globally, the share
of Russia in the microblogs is still small, but one cannot but notice its
rapid expansion - a mere two years ago Russian accounts in Twitter totaled
no more than 10 thousand. The most famous microblogger is the country's
president, Dmitry Medvedev, who in June started his personal page in
Twitter. His example was followed by many Russian officials. Some of them
cannot do without microblogging even at formal meetings.