BOULDER, CO--(Marketwired - Jan 14, 2014) -  Gnip, the world's largest and most trusted provider of social data, has added access to social data from VK via the Gnip Data Collector. VK, formerly known as VKontakte, has more than 236 million members, is the second largest social network in Europe and the largest social network in Russia.

Just in time for the 2014 Sochi Winter Olympics, the VK Data Collector will provide publicly available social data on how brands are discussed in Russia. Many global brands already have a presence on VK through official pages and fan groups including Coca-Cola, McDonald's, Nike, Volvo, Land Rover, Zara and more.

"Social media has seen tremendous growth worldwide, and our customers are craving access to social conversations happening around the globe," said Chris Moody, CEO of Gnip. "VK provides unparalleled social data from more than 60 million user accounts in Russia alone, and is one of the best sources available to companies looking to understand their Russian- and Ukrainian-speaking audiences." 

"We work with global brands that require a comprehensive view of customer conversations and trends across the world," said Craig Stoe, Director of Product for Adobe Social. "Access to VK data allows us to deliver more relevant insight to our customers, particularly as many brands are preparing for the Olympics. Partnering with Gnip ensures that Adobe provides marketers and analysts with a trusted set of social data."

"Our global customers want coverage in growing markets such as Russia and Eastern Europe. VK, with more than 236M users, gives our customers insights they need to better serve this market," said Tara Roberts, Vice President of Oracle Social. "We feel that our customers will see immediate value in monitoring VK for mentions of their brands."

VK's robust sharing platform gives users the ability to upload documents, audio, video, photos, links, pages, notes and more. In addition to this content, Gnip customers will also have access to the geotagged data, gender, likes and comments available through the API. Like all sources on Gnip's Data Collector, VK data will include key features such as payload format normalization, optimized polling and more.

In addition to Russian, VK also supports Ukrainian and English as its 3 official languages and is the second most trafficked website in all of Eastern Europe. More than 40% of VK's traffic originates outside of Russia, making it a significant source of social conversation about brands in Europe as a whole.

If you're interested in learning more, please visit http://gnip.com/sources/VK or info@gnip.com.

About Gnip:
 Gnip is the world's largest and most trusted provider of social data. Gnip's customers deliver social media analytics to more than 95% of the Fortune 500. Gnip delivers more than 120 billion realtime social data activities each month, providing access to data from dozens of sources including Twitter, Tumblr, Foursquare, WordPress, Disqus and more. For more information, email info@gnip.com or visit Gnip.com.