Telegram is a media revolution.

Media in the modern world constantly complains about the lack of attention to their problems. It becomes harder for print publications to keep themselves afloat and go online. And as soon as they go down to where they were even afraid to look in, the Internet hits them in the face of a new reality. Users are not eager to pay for content that they can read if not here, so there. They put various kinds of extensions to block ads, just steal content and leave everyone with a nose. To which only people will not go, just to stay with their blood and do not pay anyone.

And what about online publications that immediately settled on the network? At first they hung up a bunch of banners that blinked, floated from all sides and tried to stumble onto the cursor. Waited for your click like a hidden lion waits until the antelope loses vigilance. But over time, this has ceased to help, and the developed etiquette made the sites jaded with so much slag useless. (Of course, we still sometimes have to visit them, because they remain a big mainstay of pirated content, which allows us to save money).

With the advent of native advertising, everything began to change slightly. Publications were able to clean up their websites from everything superfluous, leaving the user alone with why he came to them - with text, video, or both. Yes, I sometimes had to deal with advertising materials - but if the author and the editors approached this with the mind, the readers received useful information for him. Which, if not strange, was no worse than ordinary textual material. The editors could only understand their audience, carefully select the advertising partner and the trick. It seemed, here it is, a revolution that has become a great lifeline for everyone without exception.
')
It turned out that such a format is difficult to assess. The views here do not solve anything, you need a real result, figures and facts that can be compared. It used to be able to sell clicks and no one was responsible for their quality, no one promised that the user who clicked on the banner would definitely buy the advertised product or service. All washed their hands. With native advertising it did not work. Such an easy way to submit and so difficult to implement the approach to selling conditional “bands” on the website of any publication only helps to pretend that everything is in order. Therefore, a revolution and a breakthrough did not happen. Sites remain stagnating, roll down to yellow headers and return banners. No one could come up with any truly effective way to deliver the content directly to the user. Yes, there were e-mail newsletters and push notifications. However, in the letter they collected all the materials, and in the push they put the news that someone considered necessary. No one guaranteed that the user would react to it, and if the reaction follows, it is not the engagement that everyone craves. But the decision was literally under his nose, and for a very long time.

The first popular way to exchange messages as instantly as possible. Anyway, everyone used this messenger, and some continue to use it until now. Many later began to scare a huge amount of spam coming against the wishes of the user. Now and then, you can launch ICQ to chat with friends at the other end of the world, but you spend precious time blocking unfamiliar accounts. But this openness could be used. Just imagine that these bots attacks could be moved to a useful direction, taken under control and prompted the user to receive valuable information. Keep abreast of life, be aware of everything and always. I remember well the times when I always tried to stay in touch even on the old phone. But all this was lost, the administration and management lost touch with their audience and did not withstand the onslaught of the social networking boom. And while the world reveled in the new opportunities that opened before it, the media still lamented that they could not overcome their crisis. In fact, none of them tried to think of a way out of the situation; everyone could only try to adapt to the state of things. It worked, but also until a certain time. Maybe it still works, but not on the scale that serious media needs. The necessary tool was always nearby, but everyone walked in a circle.

Live broadcasts in Periscope or Facebook? Quick and short tweets? A loyal audience around open groups and communities in social networks? Youtube? Everything is good, but it was necessary to come up with something that would be able to live for several years, needed a method and a way to get the opportunity to give content to users in such a way that they had no chance to not visit the site. Successful media from unsuccessful are distinguished only by demand, but with each passing year it is harder to keep people's attention on themselves. Sites grow like mushrooms after rain, and ten bad comes across one good. But the whole dozen is buried in an endless information flow. And all because of the fact that those who should set the tone and pace of the whole industry could not think of anything on their own. Didn’t pay attention that all the ways of content consumption are thought up on the side?

The boom of messengers came and passed us. You may think that you were actively involved in their development. They used them, created a network effect and put all their acquaintances, friends and relatives. But all that you saw in them was already - just a repetition, as they say, the mother of learning. It was a well forgotten old, which could be presented as incredibly new.
We have to admit that after the active growth phase, the messenger as a phenomenon has ceased to be something interesting. For some, this was sufficient, for others - an intermediate step. It was the same with RSS. It was an interesting and convenient (for someone) way to keep track of interesting publications on interesting sites. Someone still uses this format, but in fact it is also the last century. The messenger is no longer just a place that is used to receive personal messages. This is a platform with unlimited growth opportunities and a huge platform for doing business of almost any size. (In certain meanings and ways). Most likely, this opportunity was seen in this direction by Pavel Durov when he invented Telegram. Each step and each new function was clearly thought out in advance.

Someone says that Telegram is a new social network. Someone says that this is a new operating system (due to the capabilities of some bots). I openly say: Telegram and its channels are a fresh breath of air in a stagnant swamp of media. Perhaps this is the last remaining way to get the user to visit the site more often, perhaps this is the first real way to form a truly loyal audience around them. Why? It's simple.

The messenger is still something personal and private. But not because you communicate there with a select number of contacts - but because you do not want to see strangers there, but if you do, it is not to receive indecent offers with creams and gels for your genitals. The first attempt can be considered the experiment Viber, which created the opportunity to make public chats. Already then it was possible to guess which direction to move. Users themselves pushed for this; this simple solution lay literally on the surface.
How many people rushed into the public chats of opinion leaders (who not only used it in personal promotion, but also the promotion of the messenger himself), and there were also public chats of various publications. They allowed us to get real feedback, unvarnished and unadorned. If someone is lazy to start an account on some site, then that he should leave a positive or negative response in a couple of clicks. But it was a real living reaction that can be quickly monitored and to which it was possible to respond. Channels only developed effect and direction.

I myself am an active user of channels. I have more than a dozen channels in Telegram, which provide me with extremely useful information. I always have access to it - at work, on a walk or at home. I can turn on notifications, I can turn them off, but messages will not stop coming. With a simple solution like Mute or Unmute, I easily sort the information consumed by importance. At a convenient time for me, I can go in and see everything that is important to me. At the same time, this whole stream does not interfere with my personal correspondence.

Why did Telegram become so important and why it was this way that was able to leave everyone far behind? Because Telegram is a real national product. He did not need to increase users by advertising or other means of promotion. Messenger has its own natural audience, which is earned only due to the fact that from the very beginning it was focused on its users. We installed the application on our smartphone, we liked it and we invited others there. And this network effect is one of the biggest in my memory. The rest, who succeeded in attracting the masses in this way, sooner or later all the same went into the shadow of their competitors. Durov, while organically increasing the capabilities of his offspring, is proportionally increasing users, making Telegram's influence on the world of technology and media even stronger. The rest, WhatsApp, Messenger, and so on, can boast as much as they want, but from now until the end of this race (and will it be the end?) They will always be second.

Of course, there is a chance that everything will be lost again. Equally, we could observe such an effect on Vkontakte, and Durov lost his influence, and we can see what was left of the former social network. It is quite possible that Durov himself will be able to spoil everything. Neither the first nor the second option does not want to believe, they do not bode well. Although it will certainly please competitors, in particular Facebook, which, using its Instant Articles platform, is trying to provide its media with a convenient way to provide users with information. And despite the fact that they are radically different, they pursue the same goal: to give the user a simple, convenient and fast way to keep abreast of events. Someone says that the navigation of the application is not enough: the separation of messages and channels for example. But is it important? Messages from channels or from users are sorted depending on the time of receipt. If you have a lively correspondence with someone, why do you need to sort on multiple screens? Without sending someone to deliberately ignoring, you will never miss an important message. Telegram is good in the form in which it is, and if improvements are needed - it is only in the full automation of the distribution of content from the media. A lightweight and simple API that allowed other services to implement similar functions is good — great if it turns out to be in the same place again and under everyone’s hand. Perhaps this is the only thing the absence of which separates the messenger from the excellent media platform.

Telegram is a strong thing as long as there is a force that feeds it. Media can use this power for free and exhaust their users to the last - making them only happier. And although the final point of the development of the messenger as a full-fledged service is still far and much remains to be done, the hardest is over.