What happened to the site of the Skolkovo Foundation - the answers

In the last post I briefly described the situation with the Skolkovo Foundation site as it was visible from the inhabitants of habrahabr.ru . In addition, he voiced questions to the administration of the project. Unfortunately, we didn’t see any official information, but this topic was discovered in LiveJournal . Let's try to make an interview out of it.

Important : At 17:00 on April 14, the answers to the questions are updated with official comments.


Question 1.
When was the i-gorod website made, how much time was spent on its development and how much did the direct developer pay?
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The answer from the official release:

The site www.i-gorod.com was launched at the moment when the innovation center did not formally exist even on paper. It was just an idea, the Federal Law on Skolkovo had not yet been passed, there was no funding, but a platform was needed to collect proposals for a project to create a Russian innovation center and inform the interested audience about the progress of this idea.

Since Skolkovo had neither a corporate style nor a logo, it was decided not to create a complicated website with a large infrastructure for the transition period, but to choose a simple but convenient information site template, where, without wasting any time, any user could find and read all the necessary information about the project. Such a template was found and purchased on a special portal, which presents ready-made design solutions.

The answer of Stanislav Naumov:

The site was made last summer, I even retrospectively for reasons of principle did not delve into the minute-to-month workmanship and calculations. I have been working in the Fund since December 2, 2010. The first thing that Viktor Vekselberg instructed me to do is to analyze how the websites look at other innovation centers and select a qualified executor of the communicative Skolkovo. We have done such work together with specialists - you see its result in the presentation. But since the question was asked about that site, I am sure that no one paid more than anyone for the most notorious 20 thousand rubles, he did not promise to pay. This is a temporary business card, we are forced from time to time to somehow make changes to its external structure and improve technical parameters. At one of those moments, what happened happened. This is all, of course, ridiculous, and I regret that this gave rise to suspicions about the overestimated amount of expenses for creating a temporary version.

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Question 2.
How to spend 3 million rubles allocated from the budget for the creation of the site?

The answer from the official blog, Natalia Makarkina:

The essence is simple: I-gorod.com is the solution chosen for the current tasks of March 2010. And in those conditions it was important not to reinvent the wheel, but to get a ready-made solution (at market prices, I emphasize prices) in order to solve the communicative problem as quickly as possible. By the way, the company, which was engaged in its creation, technical support, content filling and promotion (online edition of the site), as well as shooting and editing videos (in youtube - iSkolkovo) for the year received a total of about 2 million rubles . Those numbers that are all referenced are the planned budget for 2010. If you focus on them, then we can say that the Fund has managed to save.

The answer of Stanislav Naumov:

3 million is the projection of a three-year budget in interagency correspondence in the summer version of 2010. She, along with other articles not preserved by the fall, even as a landmark. A group of children, which among other things worked and how the site edited last year received about 2 million rubles under the official contract. Expenditures on communication resources and electronic Skolkovo are laid out for us according to different budget items, there will probably not be a single executor of the entire scope of tasks. At one time, in 2009 I allocated 13 million rubles to the minpromtorg.gov.ru website. It seems to me at that time to be quite adequate in terms of solving the first stage of creating a system of public services and services in the electronic ministry mode. The site began to work in 2010, you can see. Based problem when launching new sites is a change in administrative regulations, management technology organization

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Question 3.
What hosting options were before the fall and now? Did you plan high attendance of the project or was it made for a tick?

The answer from the official blog, Natalia Makarkina:

Before transferring to a new server, the site held up to about 100 simultaneous requests. For a temporary solution a year ago that was enough. Today, it already hangs at around 8.5 thousand queries / sec. The upgrade continues.

The answer of Stanislav Naumov:

Since the beginning of December, we have been accepting applications from potential project participants, the total number of visitors exceeded four thousand people, in the database almost applications, in March we receive two dozen new applications every week. Since December, Skolkovo has been mentioned monthly in the media over 2,000 times, but direct contact with target audiences requires tens of thousands of visits. So with your help, we will become one of the most famous resources on innovation in Russia. It will be important to go out to foreign audiences, not repeating the mistakes recently made.

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Question 4.
What conclusions are made on the basis of the situation?

The answer from the official blog, Natalia Makarkina:

The existing version of the site does not suit us fully (which is why we are now launching competitive procedures for developing the product we need). To this end, appealed to the Internet community, but the reaction came from just a few companies in the form of specific proposals: i-skolkovo.livejournal.com/4763.html
It is important for us to know how much those services that we plan to implement on the “Skolkovo Virtual” site actually cost. From this point of view, we are even grateful to the guys from habrahabra for joining this topic. We hope that they will move from discussing the current version of the (temporary) site to proposals and projects. Maybe even someone decides to join our working group to create a new Internet resource Skolkovo.>

The answer of Stanislav Naumov:

The most important conclusion was that there was no need to fear the accusation that we are ordering the wrong structures as the new communicative resource, ahead of time in understanding all the details of the electronic Skolkovo project. These processes should go in parallel. In the case of electronic Skolkovo, we have a serious set of potential partners, we understand on which platforms they will offer us to work, in any case, you, as professionals, will appreciate this.

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Question 5.
Do you still consider the habr-community evil hackers who DDOS-yat site? If so, do you plan to file a complaint with the police, and if not, will there be a press release with a recognition of the error?

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Question 6.
Are you ready to thank Habrayuzer, which made you great advertising and conducted a chic load testing?

The answer from the official blog, Natalia Makarkina:

4-6) Habs are young people. We will now design a new site with them.

Thanks to Natalia Makarkina for the answers to difficult questions. It is a pity that the senior management of the fund did not have time to issue an official press release.

A few words from myself. With the costs of the first version of the site of the fund, everything is already clear. The immortal situation from V.Chernomyrdin best describes the situation: “We wanted the best, but it turned out as always.”

Now we need to look forward and offer our help and ideas, while we are ready to listen.

Update1. In the comments developed a heated discussion of the real cost of work on the site. Just in case I will remind the information on the budget .
Quote:

• Website and blogs - 3.1 million rubles.
• branding - 12.9 million rubles
• Media placement and advertising - 92.8 million rubles.

A few words about branding. Here is a link to the news about creating a brand .
Quote:

She will receive $ 50,000 from the Skolkovo management company for her work. Another 50 thousand dollars will receive the second bidder - the agency «SPN Ogilvy».

The symbolism developed by SPN Ogilvy will be used as an auxiliary one. The work of the bidders will still be there. In Skolkovo, in addition to the management company itself, three more organizations will operate separately: one will be engaged in innovations, the second will be responsible for construction, and the third will manage Skolkovo property.

And each requires separate brands, which continue to be developed by SPN Ogilvy and MIR.

All honestly 4 companies, each with its own brand for 100 thousand dollars. So, the required 12 million are running over. We met one brand. It remains to see the remaining three?

Update2.
Added comments by Stanislav Naumov from his personal blog:
stanislavnaumov.ru/2011/04/6125

The blog has already fallen from Habraeffect!

As we can see, the budget that is laid out on the marker is not final.