WordPress 3.0, Social Media in Russia, Hiring & Coffee

So, there’s quite some interesting stuff going on around here and let’s of course begin with WordPress. Yes, WordPress 3.0 has been released, some blog posts of mine got even more visibility and I’ve been interviewed on the WordCast Conversations show – thank you so much @kymhuynh and @lorelleonwp.

I don’t know when the show will air, but Kym promised to let me know the scheduled date as soon as they set one, so stay tuned for an update – I’ll write a separate post for that one.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev is in the US, visiting Apple, Twitter & others from the Silicon Valley. He finally got his Twitter accounts: @KremlinRussia and @KremlinRussia_E (for the English speaking ones). Both accounts are verified and following @BarackObama ;) He gained over 30k followers within two days and is now using his own URL trimming service – krln.ru! He also has some quite cool photos of the Twitter office, the Apple office and Steve Jobs ;)

Speaking about photos, a few days ago I came across a real New York City Taxi here in Moscow. It was parked in Lyublino (South-East), had no number plates, and disappeared after a couple of days. I guess it was some Russian oligarch living in NYC who got drunk on Friday and decided to visit his relatives in Moscow during the weekend :D Oh well ..

My apologies, this was shot from my iPhone, not the best size and quality. View the full photo here. So, as promised by the title, a short list of facts I found interesting this week, mainly about hiring:

• MoiKrug (Russian Linked in clone) is not that bad.
• HeadHunter.ru & SuperJob.ru ARE that bad.
• Luxoft know who I am and have my contact details.
• It’s a good idea to speak to candidates over the phone for 15-20 minutes before inviting them over for a job interview. 60% are usually dropped out.
• SugarCRM is boring, BaseCamp too. Microsoft Project rocks.
• Russian Assist.ru e-payment system does not work.
• Russian 1C is not the only ERP platform used in Russia. Some prefer Microsoft Dynamics NAV (formerly called Navision).
• MVC and Zend Framework should be mastered immediately.
• There are problems accessing Gmail from certain regions in Turkey.
• Coffee without milk is okay, until you start drinking it everyday.

That’s about it for this week and yes, we’re still looking for young and talented PHP developers and web designers willing to work in Moscow startup. Feel free to contact me for more information about the job offers. Cheers, and have a great weekend!