Social network in 2019: Yandex launched "Aura"

News with a touch of subjectivity

How many times in your life did you think something like: but I would have Toyota wheels, drive and floatability from Hunter, appearance from X3, and dimensions from Tundra would be the perfect car? And Yandex thought - and it worked. In any case, the first impressions of his social service "Aura" - wow, wow, take off, go, convenient, simple. But the devil, as you know, in the details. While it is beta and, I hope, I will not be shot for screenshots. So, Habr - meet - "Aura" lit up.
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Seals have another platform to capture the world :-)

"Aura" is a social service from Yandex, which is in closed testing mode. The user who got on the aura of the invite gets the opportunity to use all the functions of the service and invite 5 users per day (5 invites are awarded). Gradually, the reticulum grows, due to the closeness, which means the desire to get there, stirs interest to itself. I do not know about you, but I already have half of the Facebook feed asking for an invite, and the other asks who wants to invite an “Aura”. Well, not half, but mostly technically advanced guys - those are the most early birds.

After registering, you are called in the Aura with the name of your mailbox (so it is better to register a beautiful one and not sexy_pupsya if you are going to write about Cubernets and Highload), your age is drawn up in profile, you put your picture.


This profile was created after uploading photos

Quick review

Aura does not yet have a mobile application, it is available in the Yandex mobile application for iOS and Android. That is, the company kills many birds with one stone: users put an application to go into the Aura, go to Yandex’s face, there are all the services, weather, mail, news, Zen. And all this gets the audience and traffic. And yes, in order to register in Aura, you need to have mail on Yandex - so that those who do not have to register.


Aura consists of several tabs:

People - you see people nearby, new posts, you can enable smart matching (acquaintances, search for interlocutors - I turned off so far), see people with similar interests, members of the communities in which you belong, those who rated your posts. Comfortable tape with the usual navigation.

Notifications - notifications. I have only about subscribing to me.

Chats (with badge on the number of messages) - chats in which there are new events. While this is the most block I didn’t like, I’ll tell you in more detail what I do not like.

Profile - your photo, settings, communities, your posts and your favorite posts. In the settings you can customize notifications, set a black list (how cool that it is immediately!). Also there is a User Agreement, feedback and content requirements. Probably, for beta, it is not very correct to disclose the content of these sections, but I will say that the requirements are rather strict - I was reminded of the requirements for the content of Yandex.Direct ads. In short, peace, friendship, chewing gum. Here is a characteristic discussion inside the Aura - yes, I think, with obscenities and insults, this is not something for you to kindle :-)


There, in the profile, you can delete the profile. While we are not, we are testing further.

Post creation

Post create, how to send two bytes - you can select a photo, the background color of the text and write a message up to 2200 characters. I, accustomed to Habra, thought that it would be impossible to express so briefly. But no, it turns out - typing 2200 characters from the keyboard of your smartphone is tiring, so conciseness develops just instantly. There is no editor yet, but the links in the text work. Post when creating is tied to one or more of your communities (well, as a post - to the hubs on Habré, for me an extremely familiar interface). While it is not clear that with hashtags, and well, them.

This is what the post looks like: you can see comments, geolocation, views and likes. Post can be add to favorites, edit, delete. You can complain about someone else’s post (the guy I tested, forgive me, I didn’t know that there are no reasons for complaints and the notification of the complaint just flies away when you click the “Report” button).


If you like the post, you swipe to the right and the post flies away with a heart, if not, to the left, and it is swept away.



In general, everything is simple, mechanics, GUI, UX are nice, cool. True, I am cramped on the display of the iPhone 5S, but this is a payment for the love of compact phones. On the 6-inch android is still nicer, more convenient, and better review.

Comments to posts can be added and minus (arrows, just like in Habré), edit, delete, complain, reply.

Chats

This point has depressed me somewhat. So, to start a chat, you need to go to the user profile and type a message no shorter than 15 characters (just “Hello” will not work). But ... the message did not go - the button is inactive. What the hell?! Yeah, you also need to attach a topic on which you are going to communicate (from your friend's topics) - maybe I'm confusing, but this is such a big deal in communication. It is clear that you can choose a theme from the bald and ask a friend to buy a lemonade for the party, but somehow it is not very. Clearly there is work to do.

Emoticons in chat rooms work.

Small things gallop

Communities are still a strange entity in which there are people united by interest (and again the analogy with hubs is being asked for). Creating your own community is not obvious - I created “crm” and “sales and sales people”, someone signed up there overnight. In essence, these are tags ... To create a community, you need to enter its name in the list, and then tap it again - otherwise it will not be created and when you first refresh the page it will disappear.

Chats in Alice's chat list are not loaded. And in general, so far I have not noticed any integration with Alice. And it would be convenient.

All posts can be limited by community, distance, gender, age (up to a year run!). I think the advertisers will especially like the Aura and will use it in the tail and in the mane - how to miss such a target! It is interesting what Yandex will do with this and how much it monetizes.

Conclusions and reflections

The first impression is just great - I’m 14 years in the IT field and, if I had thought up something of my own, it would probably be like an Aura. Yes, in 2019 you do not expect a new social network, but Yandex’s attempt seems to me promising.

A good design of the tape, a great foundation for the size of the post, convenient and “voting” commenting can not but rejoice. But the target for publications and a hard peg to interests hints that this platform will be in demand for public relations and advertising. However, I am sure that such an idea with a distant sight was the place to be.

Aura, of course, is not a competitor to Telegram, is unlikely to become a killer of Facebook and VKontakte, at least due to strict content requirements. It seems that after the recession of interest, Aura will become a niche social service for communicating by interests, dating and communicating brands with the audience. Wait and see.

And yes, there is not enough desktop version - you need to be distracted by the mobile, this is a serious and inconvenient limitation.

The main thing is that it should be a good aura, and not an aura from a migraine.

PS: maybe the post will be supplemented.

PPS: I wonder how soon someone will parse the Aura or manually pull out mail addresses across communities (nickname + yandex .ru) and make advertising mailings?

UPD 1

You can not put a photo where the face will not be recognized. For example, a cat or eyes (look). So they write: "Our algorithm did not recognize your face." But Angelina Jolie and Brad Pitt, downloaded as photos for the test, accepted. So while with m / f and celebrities, the algorithm does not know how to work.

You can not find a specific person by name and subscribe to him. For example, having invited a friend from the “left” account, you will not be able to communicate with him until you find him from the main one. And there is no search as such, but you can agree, create a community and subscribe to each other. It's hard. Disconnecting people.

With abusive words trouble :-) Not passed censorship (does not allow to publish a comment) the words of the "literary" level: ass, asshole, bitch, scum. Gone: you bastard, idiot. Passed: zh0pa. But the three-letter classic with igryk instead of "y" did not pass.

UPD 2

We continue to test. The comments feed on Habré consists of a couple of hundred requests for an invite with the specified mail. And about a hundred of the same comments hang on approval. In order not to stretch the time, I took my Yandex mail (needed for the project) and registered several Aura accounts for myself. On two I put my own photos, on two, male, photos of Brad Pitt. Artificial intelligence from the board of the Aura did not recognize any problems, although all accounts contain similar photos, from one IP-person, from one mobile network and geolocation and from one device. It is not clear why such fraud basic features were not cut off.

UPD 3

Subjectivity is growing. The tape still looks very uncomfortable. I am subscribed, for example, to “technology” and “Nizhny Novgorod”, and city photographers, just messages, discourses, etc., bring their creations to these communities. - it is obvious that it is necessary to produce narrow communities like "python in Nizhny Novgorod".

Three obviously "podkatnyh" requests for acquaintances came, although I am not subscribed to the match and this interest. All geolocation. Here Yandex, you can say, has gained its audience :-)

Advertising has already been - the ubiquitous and not always thinking dealers of Bitrix 24 is right there.

UPD 4

It's amazing how many people in threads on social networks, Habr and other resources openly indicate their e-mail. Whether everyone is really careless in information security (working in an enterprise for 14 years, I am sure that it is), or Yandex mail is not very special for everyone. However, there are clearly many reasons, and not some one.

Very important UPD - “Aura” temporarily stopped issuing invites

PPPS: to anyone with an unapproved comment, an invite will be given in turn. Alas, only 5 per day - the hype is the same :-)