Russian social network Vkontakte.ru is launching a contextual ad network in summer 2009.

The network, which will target Vkontakte's seven million daily users based on demographics, geography and user behavior, can be construed as a mashup between Google's contextual ad network AdSense and the efforts of social network Facebook, which experiments with various types of engagement-building display adverts.

Vkontakte hosts 25 million registered users and is considered one of the larger social networks in Russia. Rival socnet Odnoklassniki already serves contextual ads via ad firm Begun. According to business daily Kommersant (via Quintura), Vkontakte could generate an estimated $7 million from contextual ads per year.

In the US, where over 40 million people are registered to a social network, the typical socnet user spends an average of $101 online per month and reaches about 110 people per week, according to Netpop Research.

Russia may not be far behind. In September 2007 it swept the EU as the largest region of internet-adopters. Its online ad market was estimated to hit $685 million in 2008, about double the amount reached in 2007.