Runetology: now in the text
For many months now, our listeners have been actively asking us to do transcripts of the “Runetology” conversations. Like, reading the interview is more convenient than listening. Indeed, it is often difficult to find the time and opportunity for thoughtful listening to a podcast lasting an hour. Sometimes it's easier and more comfortable to read the text version of the conversation.
At first we wanted to make separate posts with transcripts, but Habr does not allow publishing such volumes of text (from 60 thousand characters). Therefore, the decryption will be stored on PodFM.ru. To view them, you need to click the "Text version of the release" button, which is under the player on the podcast page ( example ).
While text versions are not available for all podcasts. As an experiment, we decided to first decipher four issues of Runetology in May. Under the cut are the most interesting clippings from an interview with Alexei Kostarev (i-Jet, “Happy Farmer”), Artyom Geller (kremlin.ru), Alexei Ametov (Look At Me) and Ivan Zassoursky (Chaskor). Who likes to read rather than listen - you are here.
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[M. Spiridonov] : In 2007, you saw what was happening on Facebook and you immediately started working on social applications?
[BUT. Kostarev]: Absolutely. The first game was “Mafia”, it appeared even earlier than social networks, social games. We made Mafia and did not know where to go with it. That is, just hang on some site, for example, on mafia.ru, which was obvious, but somehow users also need to lure there? Faced with the fact that advertising costs are incomparable with the cost of development, and we did not have the money. And once again, when I didn’t know a single person on the Russian Internet, I wrote a letter to those companies that might be interested in Yandex, Rambler, Mile.ru. I was surprised, but the next day I was answered by Yandex and Rambler. We arrived, and the guys listened to us. And so, the Rambler company, Alexey Sadonov, who headed the game line then (and later went to Mail.Ru, although he already left it from there) ... Alexey believed in us, and even taking into account the fact that Rambler had the games are only casual, but ours didn’t fit the format at all, but was some kind of innovation at that time. There were no social applications, but there were friends in this game, it was necessary to communicate in it, it was multiplayer, many people know this game from children's camps. He believed in us, and we hung the Mafia on the Rambler portal, an audience came to us, and this was a turning point.
[M. Spiridonov]: How did it look? What is the main change?
[BUT. Kostarev]: Users have come to us. At first there were a few of them, man 30. Even after 30 people we did not cope with this stream, our server went down. We are nothing, we again slightly faked the server. We identified 50 people. Then we reached the figures of 2000 people online and somehow withstood such loads. At that time, in my opinion, we, taking into account all the optimizations, tried about 100 business models, fought for every percent, for every ruble, although we joked that we all earned a bottle of beer - and so it went on for six months. Until then, until applications appeared on Facebook. At that moment, we realized that the industry had begun. We could not understand the phenomenon of “games with friends” for a very long time, it seemed to us that “Mafia” was the perfect game. This is not true, it always happens with the developer - any product seems better than others. We moved away from this, we moved the Mafia in the states on Facebook and got a great experience there, translated it into 7 languages. And at some point in the US, I realized that social networks will not only be on Facebook, they will continue to evolve - Orkut in Brazil, as an example. At this point, Google - it was 2008 - took up the active promotion of its open social platform. I thought that once again we can make another breakthrough. I didn’t have a bicycle on the rollers at that time, I already traveled by bicycle to venture capitalists - I came to Google. "I have such a project, you are moving open social, you need examples of successful games, now we are on Facebook, but we want to move on." I came to the American Google. I recognized the contacts of the person who was responsible for this referral to Google and wrote to him. In the Valley, this is very simple - if you are interested in a person from a large or small company, then it is very easy to find recommendations for him. Just ask the guys and there is at least one who knows someone, for example, from Google. Immediately you get contacts, call the person and make an appointment. No costumes, arrangements, and so on. An hour later, you meet with the right person in jeans and a T-shirt. Google offered to translate "Mafia" into 4 languages, as open social advanced in a number of countries. And Google made this translation themselves, we went to these social networks, although not to say that we got some kind of global result.
I will give one such example, an image. When we last talked with my friend - a very famous startup in Silicon Valley, InvisibleCRM, Vlad Resurrection - when I asked him: “What can you say about Silicon Valley?”. He said: "I had a situation, after a week when I arrived, they invite me to a party ...". The whole valley consists of parties, interpriners, people who do something, they all communicate with each other. He comes to this party, there was an American who asked him: “Vlad, where are you from?”. "I am from Kiev". "I do not understand, where are you from?" Where do you live, where do you live? ” "I live in Sunnyvale." That is, nobody cares where you lived before, where you were before. If you lived here for 1-2 days, if you came to this interinterner party, if you got there, you are already local. There are all the people who came, and this is the most important thing. Unlike Europe, Asia and so on, where you are still a stranger
[M. Spiridonov]: That is, there are no locals there, all of them who have come in large numbers?
[BUT. Kostarev]: When I got into the incubator, the technopark, I went in, about 45 flags hung there. There was no Russian, there was not a single Russian company. The most famous business center. Accordingly, we were the first Russian company there. There was not a single Russian company before us, although there were all over the rest of the world.
[M. Spiridonov]: Russian flag hung?
[BUT. Kostarev]: Yes!
[M. Spiridonov]: You bought, I'm afraid to lie, the "Happy Farmer" from a Chinese company for about 100 thousand dollars. Right?
[BUT. Kostarev]: Absolutely wrong. To be honest, we did not buy products and do not buy until now. The only scheme according to which we work is profit sharing. We offer to earn money from an American company or a Russian, or Asian. We will give you users, we will tell you how to make this money, we will help you to enter other markets. We negotiate without money. And we will negotiate without money.
[M. Spiridonov]: Did Mr. Medvedev himself take part in the process of creating the site? I looked through some sketches, gave some comments?
[BUT. Geller]: At the iconic stages of the work process, of course. Well, I can distinguish at least three such stages - this is the concept and descriptions of the portal, the adoption of design and the finalization of the process and project. The president approved what came out as a result, and the site started from that moment on.
[M. Spiridonov]: How did you formulate for yourself, and you formed in the team with the gentlemen from the Kremlin the tasks of the site? What is it for?
[BUT. Geller]: For people first. It does not perform any other functions.
[M. Spiridonov]: Well, people need bread, spectacles, some entertainment. “For people” is a very general answer.
[BUT. Geller]: Objectively disclose the full range of information. Saturation of all possible technological convenient accessible things. We thought a lot about accessibility, we thought a lot about socialization and this was applied in some aspects of the site. Globally, the project task was not formed. There is no paragraph that said in pathetic words about something that the project should ideologically carry. It must be democratic, convenient and affordable, and social. These are the most important things.
[M. Spiridonov]: As you said, someone from the coordinators or maybe Mr. Medvedev himself about what he wants to see? After all, go to the site and see it as if an alter ego is virtual?
[BUT. Geller]: We offered and either agreed or rejected them with our decisions. Offered themselves, which is very rare, by the way, in the client part of the work. Spoke interesting things.
[M. Spiridonov]: Can we say that this site performs the task of presenting each moment in time, location, activity and life of the President of Russia in general? Or not?
[BUT. Geller]: Yes, but these questions are spread there in different parts of the portal. Actually, the part that the “Experimental Creative Bureau” did specifically - is that you follow the link kremlin.ru.
[M. Spiridonov]: And why is the site of the President of Russia rather impersonal, I think? No photos in the cap, nor any such elements relating directly to Mr. Medvedev, only the words "President of Russia", the emblem, period.
[BUT. Geller]: This is not the site of the President of Russia Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, but the site of the President of Russia. I would like to emphasize this. This refers to the fact that the successor will use the same resource. Therefore, there is no photo of the President in the cap. In addition, if we talk about design, we tried to meet the current available interface trends that have already developed in the country of interfaces. These are operating systems, this is a certain software, we did not want the user to be distracted by beautiful pictures, but would come to the site to work, read. Or, in the case of journalists, to work.
[M. Spiridonov]: And now who serves as content managers - are you or people from the Kremlin?
[BUT. Geller]: Certainly, the presidential press service. We have nothing to do with the content of the site. We are committed to developing a resource technically, filling it with functionality, offering some ideas. If they find understanding, we will implement them.
[M. Spiridonov]: And why, by the way, going back to the beginning of implementation, were such periods chosen, 4 months? Where does this rush come from?
[BUT. Geller]: Probably, like everything in our country, everything was born for a long time and is done quickly. We do not care what the deadlines were, we had the task to do it in 4 months and we implemented it. We knew with our heads that this was theoretically realistic, we were pretty hard building the process of work and we coped with the task.
[BUT. Ametov]: At first, Look At Me existed as a street fashion blog. And quite successfully developed in this direction, was the leading stream-fashion blog in Russia at that time. And at some point, Vasya Esmanova came up with the idea that social media could be built on the basis of a blog. That is, to give people the opportunity to write some posts and plus make some small social network for this crowd of people that has developed around this blog. Just at that moment he turned to me, we met, discussed the possibilities of what can be done with this, and then still found the third co-founder, Catherine Bazilevskaya. She then worked as the general director of the agency “Oxygen” under the group of agencies Leo Burnett. And we also offered her to start doing it with us, she had a lot of experience in advertising on special projects, according to different strategic plans for clients. Accordingly, she herself could do strategic planning for us.
[M. Spiridonov]: Have you invested money?
[BUT. Ametov]: They all gathered together and realized that we still need to find a team of designers and developers. They came to the studio Nimbler, which was owned by Anton Gladkoborodov and Cyril Ten. We offered them for a share in the project for “draw and program”. Then they threw off 5 thousand euros for the salaries of the first employees and some equipment, and they started to do it.
[M. Spiridonov]: You said that after 3 weeks, you sold the first advertising space, and after a few months, I know, you went to payback.
[BUT. Ametov]: Yes, but we got a return on investment, given that we worked for free. We had some other jobs where we earned money. All that Look At Me earned was spent on staff salaries and equipment.
[M. Spiridonov]: And now how are you?
[BUT. Ametov]: Now the project is in a small plus, because we continue to actively invest. We are developing radio, we are developing a store, we are launching some new editorial projects such as Village. Accordingly, everything that we earn we try to spend.
[M. Spiridonov]: There was no external investment at all?
[BUT. Ametov]: Never. There was a loan when the crisis began, and we were pressed hard enough. And they took out a loan of 100 thousand dollars at a hell of interest - 30% per annum. Last December, they gave full money and interest.
[M. Spiridonov]: This is a strong solution. There is even such a reception at the management company, when it comes to investing in a project that is not very obvious, then some such schemes are offered: “We will give money, but on credit for some obligations”. Most people break exactly on this, I watched it more than once. The ideologue project, confident with glittering eyes, says that everything will be cool and need money - well, we will give it, but we will give it a loan. We will issue it as a loan with the possibility of converting into investments, if all goes well. If not good, then you will simply give, do you believe in the project? At this, many break.
[BUT. Ametov]: A decent scheme, in fact. Credit disciplines very cool. There are 2 things that are disciplined - people who work and who need to pay salaries, and a loan that must be repaid.
[BUT. Ametov]: The story here is that money does not come out of airless space, it comes from somewhere for some purpose. There is an investor who wants either to get his money back multiplied, or - to make matters worse - some kind of media giveaway wants. Then he will seriously influence the editorial policy. And for all that you will do. That is, accordingly, if we had a lot of money, we would have one of these two types of investors, all the same there would not be some kind of quiet life. I’m not talking about cases when people do things like “Topfotop”, about which everyone knows when it’s time to spend money in a comfortable way to assert themselves and earn a car and an apartment.
[M. Spiridonov]: Such a thought came to mind while we were discussing business components together with creative ones. Do you think that the movement around or near your site, the movement of hipsters, young people with dynamic thinking, many call it, with their outlook on things, curious young people. Is there a positive change in the minds of young people in this movement? As it is known, many people of the older generation call young people - 16-25-year-olds - lost, as if they are interested only in games and consumption. There is another option in the book "Funky Business": "All you need is sex and shopping." What you say is the point of view of the person in charge who understands the price of money, his word, ready to take responsibility for himself, for some serious deeds, for the same money. Is it yours, your approach to life? Or is it an approach to that group of young people, to hipsters? I am unfamiliar with them, although I am slightly older - I am 33, for me this is already another generation. Are you all or are you with Vasily and your team different?
[BUT. Ametov]: In general, young people were scolded in all years, they always said that young people had already gone bad, it was not clear where the world was heading. It was under Pushkin, it was in the USSR, now it’s the same in Russia. But I can say that we have an average age of a team - 24 years, and all the guys who work with us, aged 18 to 30 years, are all very talented, intelligent, responsible people who have a lot of different interests. They do very cool things. And their friends are also very, for the most part, interesting, good guys who often come to our office. Everyone with whom I communicate does not cause me to think that this is a lost generation. Although, in fact, the majority of these people spent their childhood in the 90s, when no one was engaged in them, but, on the other hand, therefore, it was possible that they were less brainwashed. They thought more about themselves.
[M. Spiridonov]: It is possible. How important is the social component of your project? Are you a social network? How do you position yourself?
[BUT. Ametov]: We are, rather, a social media, not a social network, in the full sense of the word. Our social connections within profiles do not dominate, we have dominated media content. Secondarily, the event service. But at the same time everything is “tied up” by social programs, people can communicate, discuss something, add each other as friends. Watch who goes to what event.
[M. Spiridonov]: So you are superior in the degree of social activity of “Habrahabr”? The most active project in this sense?
[BUT. Ametov]: I think so. Because people don't go to “Habrahabr” for any events, do not exchange photos, do not get to know each other somehow actively ...
[M. Spiridonov]: Do you have a very strong interface out into offline?
[BUT. Ametov]: We are very tightly tied to offline. This is our very serious difference from most other projects.
[M. Spiridonov]: Is it really uninteresting to get into the cage of projects of world brands, the same GQ, the same "Glamor" and so on? It seems to me that there you would look very organic.
[BUT. Ametov]: I, from the very beginning, told us that we never needed an investor and a full life, therefore we take seriously the issue of making money, our independence. So far we have not seen a single investor, not a single person who would come to us with some kind of proposal that we would like, with whom we would like to work. All were Russian companies. Maybe after some time here or in the West it will be interesting for us to work together and somehow develop the project. We are not selling the site at the moment.
[AND. Zasursky]: ... but in fact I came, it was very funny there, I came, I meet with them, they say “What do you want?”, I say “I need a position in the company, I want to be deputy general director for PR” , they are “OK”. Now, I say, I want so much money, and, by the way, I didn’t give much, they immediately agreed.
[M. Spiridonov]: Little is how much?
[AND. Zasursky]: Either two, or four asked for thousands of dollars a month. Well, I say, I needed this job, I was a cool PR man, but I was not an Internet researcher, so, honestly, I didn’t really understand what was going on here. But I brought back from America the feeling that you need to do just that, and everything else is secondary, you need to deal with this, and then there will be some future from this. And so I didn’t really bargain, I later felt terribly sorry that I had made a bad bargain, and in the end this same Lopatinsky eventually left me without money when we were “divorced” with Rambler. But in fact, he did it not by evil, and had nothing personal in mind, they just had to hide from these shareholders the unfortunates from Prof-Media who bought Rambler, because if they just spoke with me, they would would do things differently.
[M. Spiridonov]: Yeah, how would they do it?
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, firstly, they probably would not buy, I was a PR manager who did resuscitation of a company in a coma, which with the help of artificial kidneys, artificial lungs, artificially inflated something, as if, like a frog. But in principle, I am not offended, because when you do such a work and as a result someone suffers as ProfMedia suffered, they certainly did their own stupidity, because they didn’t even meet me, although I was there in plain sight , they didn’t ask anything at all what was happening there, but talked to people who wanted to sell this piece of shit to them. At that time, he was not yet a poo, just the shareholders' priority was very clear - to make money, they had little money for me, they sold the building at Avtozavodskaya and for $ 10 million, what they could do - they did. Therefore, they hired Ira Hoffman as a “stuffed doll”, who simply did not know anything about this business and could speak with the same naivete as I, when I was hired, about everything that shareholders and future customers need to say.
[M. Spiridonov]: But this is interesting, when did you understand everything then?
[AND. Zasursky]: I immediately understood almost everything, when I came to work on the first day, I went to the office, and there people with sad eyes were packing things, it turned out that the moment they hired me, the entire Ashmanov team, 30 people, was fired. And I really come to Rambler, who was in the science park, and there they all pack their bags. Everything was immediately clear. And it was clear that there had been a team there for a whole year, which had been lying about the figures for a whole year, for a whole year people said that the profitability was in fact so-and-so, well, then there was no profitability, I'm sorry, our audience is, Yandex is lying, that they overtake us. In short, this is a terrible story, a company that is lying to itself, which is moving from one clan to another, some kind of a “civil war” inside this Rambler. And I still didn’t get into anything, and it took me a year and a half to figure it out, and then I started managing the process, that is, I launched Rambler Vision, launched the mobile version, did a lot more, but honestly, I not really happened, objectively speaking. The meaning of this is that, in fact, shareholders are interested in stability, they were not very worried about the fact that some local success would arise or not, it’s important that the company remained “in one piece” so that it could be sold. Therefore, this experience was very useful for me, because I was terribly angry, there was such a strange story, there was such a girl, Tanya Zhelonkina. Which mail.ru came to us, which, as it were, seized control, became executive director, but she was, as they say, disloyal, that is, she “looked at the door” all the time, and all the time she thought that she was about to "Throw". My task was to calm her down constantly, to try to ensure that her struggle for power did not lead to the collapse of the projects that I started. Oleg Bunin was still there, such a character, he is also now quite noticeable, who was the head of the technical service, I helped him grow in this position and together we took photos, videos, and everything else. I can not say that we did everything perfectly, but Rambler is just a tin, that is, at that moment it was almost impossible to do anything and at the same time there was a very curved management system when a shareholder sits above everything who does not want that something touched, because it will look bad and incomprehensible, it will then turn out to sell it or not, which is just waiting for a good moment to sell it, and at the same time it is clear that the situation is getting worse and worse.
[M. Spiridonov]: You listen, there was just some kind of nightmare, civil war and devastation.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, it was my life, it was my nightmare, people who know me, they know what it cost me.
[M. Spiridonov]: And tell me, did the situation change somehow? They are still quite self, that is, a Rambler gives signs of life completely, even if it doesn’t look perfect.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well ... What number is the Rambler? Where is he? What it is? What does this company do? What do they specialize in?
[M. Spiridonov]: Well, Rambler is a kind of media portal with a search of its own, not the best, yes, of course, but the old audience still holds on to it.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, I don’t want to say anything bad about Rambler, you know, I think that Rambler, in general, is the highest being, this disembodied omniscient some kind of being, powerful, whom I served for many years, and don’t want to betray him even now, but I can say that the business of this corporation has evolved from bad to worse, from worse to catastrophe. The catastrophe has come now, on the one hand it is a popular website, but on the other hand, there is nothing unique there and even the Top 100 is now impossible to use after they have redone it. , , , - . , , , , , , , , , , , . , «», , , , - , — . - . - , , , - , -, , PR, , . , , , . , , , «» .
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[. ]:Well, maybe advertising agencies mostly. Some traffic launderers. Well, that is, it's all a fool's game, and I don't want to play the fool. I make deals with real people, then I feel ashamed in front of them, do you understand me?
[M. Spiridonov]: I understand, but how would it be correct then, can you draw a picture of the ideal state of the market?
[AND. Zasursky]: The ideal state of the market is when people, as it were, get exactly the audience they need. And any audience gets exactly the product that they need. Here is the perfect market condition. Well, how to explain it to you, I do not know
[M. Spiridonov]:No, I understand, that is, you think that the current imbalance is that many projects are artificial, with artificial traffic, with an artificial audience and thus deceive advertisers
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[. ]:That is, in this context, it turns out, "Chaskor" will act as a forest health officer.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, you saw the same rating as it were, the top quality media. We entered the top ten. And in this top of high-quality media, which was headed by the tape, there were, of course, different publications, but there was no RIA Novosti there, you know, and what should they do there?
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Facebook page on “Runetology”
At first we wanted to make separate posts with transcripts, but Habr does not allow publishing such volumes of text (from 60 thousand characters). Therefore, the decryption will be stored on PodFM.ru. To view them, you need to click the "Text version of the release" button, which is under the player on the podcast page ( example ).
While text versions are not available for all podcasts. As an experiment, we decided to first decipher four issues of Runetology in May. Under the cut are the most interesting clippings from an interview with Alexei Kostarev (i-Jet, “Happy Farmer”), Artyom Geller (kremlin.ru), Alexei Ametov (Look At Me) and Ivan Zassoursky (Chaskor). Who likes to read rather than listen - you are here.
')
Runetology 51 : co-owner of i-Jet ("Happy Farmer" and other games) Alexey Kosarev
[M. Spiridonov] : In 2007, you saw what was happening on Facebook and you immediately started working on social applications?
[BUT. Kostarev]: Absolutely. The first game was “Mafia”, it appeared even earlier than social networks, social games. We made Mafia and did not know where to go with it. That is, just hang on some site, for example, on mafia.ru, which was obvious, but somehow users also need to lure there? Faced with the fact that advertising costs are incomparable with the cost of development, and we did not have the money. And once again, when I didn’t know a single person on the Russian Internet, I wrote a letter to those companies that might be interested in Yandex, Rambler, Mile.ru. I was surprised, but the next day I was answered by Yandex and Rambler. We arrived, and the guys listened to us. And so, the Rambler company, Alexey Sadonov, who headed the game line then (and later went to Mail.Ru, although he already left it from there) ... Alexey believed in us, and even taking into account the fact that Rambler had the games are only casual, but ours didn’t fit the format at all, but was some kind of innovation at that time. There were no social applications, but there were friends in this game, it was necessary to communicate in it, it was multiplayer, many people know this game from children's camps. He believed in us, and we hung the Mafia on the Rambler portal, an audience came to us, and this was a turning point.
[M. Spiridonov]: How did it look? What is the main change?
[BUT. Kostarev]: Users have come to us. At first there were a few of them, man 30. Even after 30 people we did not cope with this stream, our server went down. We are nothing, we again slightly faked the server. We identified 50 people. Then we reached the figures of 2000 people online and somehow withstood such loads. At that time, in my opinion, we, taking into account all the optimizations, tried about 100 business models, fought for every percent, for every ruble, although we joked that we all earned a bottle of beer - and so it went on for six months. Until then, until applications appeared on Facebook. At that moment, we realized that the industry had begun. We could not understand the phenomenon of “games with friends” for a very long time, it seemed to us that “Mafia” was the perfect game. This is not true, it always happens with the developer - any product seems better than others. We moved away from this, we moved the Mafia in the states on Facebook and got a great experience there, translated it into 7 languages. And at some point in the US, I realized that social networks will not only be on Facebook, they will continue to evolve - Orkut in Brazil, as an example. At this point, Google - it was 2008 - took up the active promotion of its open social platform. I thought that once again we can make another breakthrough. I didn’t have a bicycle on the rollers at that time, I already traveled by bicycle to venture capitalists - I came to Google. "I have such a project, you are moving open social, you need examples of successful games, now we are on Facebook, but we want to move on." I came to the American Google. I recognized the contacts of the person who was responsible for this referral to Google and wrote to him. In the Valley, this is very simple - if you are interested in a person from a large or small company, then it is very easy to find recommendations for him. Just ask the guys and there is at least one who knows someone, for example, from Google. Immediately you get contacts, call the person and make an appointment. No costumes, arrangements, and so on. An hour later, you meet with the right person in jeans and a T-shirt. Google offered to translate "Mafia" into 4 languages, as open social advanced in a number of countries. And Google made this translation themselves, we went to these social networks, although not to say that we got some kind of global result.
I will give one such example, an image. When we last talked with my friend - a very famous startup in Silicon Valley, InvisibleCRM, Vlad Resurrection - when I asked him: “What can you say about Silicon Valley?”. He said: "I had a situation, after a week when I arrived, they invite me to a party ...". The whole valley consists of parties, interpriners, people who do something, they all communicate with each other. He comes to this party, there was an American who asked him: “Vlad, where are you from?”. "I am from Kiev". "I do not understand, where are you from?" Where do you live, where do you live? ” "I live in Sunnyvale." That is, nobody cares where you lived before, where you were before. If you lived here for 1-2 days, if you came to this interinterner party, if you got there, you are already local. There are all the people who came, and this is the most important thing. Unlike Europe, Asia and so on, where you are still a stranger
[M. Spiridonov]: That is, there are no locals there, all of them who have come in large numbers?
[BUT. Kostarev]: When I got into the incubator, the technopark, I went in, about 45 flags hung there. There was no Russian, there was not a single Russian company. The most famous business center. Accordingly, we were the first Russian company there. There was not a single Russian company before us, although there were all over the rest of the world.
[M. Spiridonov]: Russian flag hung?
[BUT. Kostarev]: Yes!
[M. Spiridonov]: You bought, I'm afraid to lie, the "Happy Farmer" from a Chinese company for about 100 thousand dollars. Right?
[BUT. Kostarev]: Absolutely wrong. To be honest, we did not buy products and do not buy until now. The only scheme according to which we work is profit sharing. We offer to earn money from an American company or a Russian, or Asian. We will give you users, we will tell you how to make this money, we will help you to enter other markets. We negotiate without money. And we will negotiate without money.
Runetology 52 : co-owner of “Experienced Creative Bureau” (developer Kremlin.ru) Artem Geller
[M. Spiridonov]: Did Mr. Medvedev himself take part in the process of creating the site? I looked through some sketches, gave some comments?
[BUT. Geller]: At the iconic stages of the work process, of course. Well, I can distinguish at least three such stages - this is the concept and descriptions of the portal, the adoption of design and the finalization of the process and project. The president approved what came out as a result, and the site started from that moment on.
[M. Spiridonov]: How did you formulate for yourself, and you formed in the team with the gentlemen from the Kremlin the tasks of the site? What is it for?
[BUT. Geller]: For people first. It does not perform any other functions.
[M. Spiridonov]: Well, people need bread, spectacles, some entertainment. “For people” is a very general answer.
[BUT. Geller]: Objectively disclose the full range of information. Saturation of all possible technological convenient accessible things. We thought a lot about accessibility, we thought a lot about socialization and this was applied in some aspects of the site. Globally, the project task was not formed. There is no paragraph that said in pathetic words about something that the project should ideologically carry. It must be democratic, convenient and affordable, and social. These are the most important things.
[M. Spiridonov]: As you said, someone from the coordinators or maybe Mr. Medvedev himself about what he wants to see? After all, go to the site and see it as if an alter ego is virtual?
[BUT. Geller]: We offered and either agreed or rejected them with our decisions. Offered themselves, which is very rare, by the way, in the client part of the work. Spoke interesting things.
[M. Spiridonov]: Can we say that this site performs the task of presenting each moment in time, location, activity and life of the President of Russia in general? Or not?
[BUT. Geller]: Yes, but these questions are spread there in different parts of the portal. Actually, the part that the “Experimental Creative Bureau” did specifically - is that you follow the link kremlin.ru.
[M. Spiridonov]: And why is the site of the President of Russia rather impersonal, I think? No photos in the cap, nor any such elements relating directly to Mr. Medvedev, only the words "President of Russia", the emblem, period.
[BUT. Geller]: This is not the site of the President of Russia Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, but the site of the President of Russia. I would like to emphasize this. This refers to the fact that the successor will use the same resource. Therefore, there is no photo of the President in the cap. In addition, if we talk about design, we tried to meet the current available interface trends that have already developed in the country of interfaces. These are operating systems, this is a certain software, we did not want the user to be distracted by beautiful pictures, but would come to the site to work, read. Or, in the case of journalists, to work.
[M. Spiridonov]: And now who serves as content managers - are you or people from the Kremlin?
[BUT. Geller]: Certainly, the presidential press service. We have nothing to do with the content of the site. We are committed to developing a resource technically, filling it with functionality, offering some ideas. If they find understanding, we will implement them.
[M. Spiridonov]: And why, by the way, going back to the beginning of implementation, were such periods chosen, 4 months? Where does this rush come from?
[BUT. Geller]: Probably, like everything in our country, everything was born for a long time and is done quickly. We do not care what the deadlines were, we had the task to do it in 4 months and we implemented it. We knew with our heads that this was theoretically realistic, we were pretty hard building the process of work and we coped with the task.
Runetology 53 : Look A Me CEO Alexei Ametov
[BUT. Ametov]: At first, Look At Me existed as a street fashion blog. And quite successfully developed in this direction, was the leading stream-fashion blog in Russia at that time. And at some point, Vasya Esmanova came up with the idea that social media could be built on the basis of a blog. That is, to give people the opportunity to write some posts and plus make some small social network for this crowd of people that has developed around this blog. Just at that moment he turned to me, we met, discussed the possibilities of what can be done with this, and then still found the third co-founder, Catherine Bazilevskaya. She then worked as the general director of the agency “Oxygen” under the group of agencies Leo Burnett. And we also offered her to start doing it with us, she had a lot of experience in advertising on special projects, according to different strategic plans for clients. Accordingly, she herself could do strategic planning for us.
[M. Spiridonov]: Have you invested money?
[BUT. Ametov]: They all gathered together and realized that we still need to find a team of designers and developers. They came to the studio Nimbler, which was owned by Anton Gladkoborodov and Cyril Ten. We offered them for a share in the project for “draw and program”. Then they threw off 5 thousand euros for the salaries of the first employees and some equipment, and they started to do it.
[M. Spiridonov]: You said that after 3 weeks, you sold the first advertising space, and after a few months, I know, you went to payback.
[BUT. Ametov]: Yes, but we got a return on investment, given that we worked for free. We had some other jobs where we earned money. All that Look At Me earned was spent on staff salaries and equipment.
[M. Spiridonov]: And now how are you?
[BUT. Ametov]: Now the project is in a small plus, because we continue to actively invest. We are developing radio, we are developing a store, we are launching some new editorial projects such as Village. Accordingly, everything that we earn we try to spend.
[M. Spiridonov]: There was no external investment at all?
[BUT. Ametov]: Never. There was a loan when the crisis began, and we were pressed hard enough. And they took out a loan of 100 thousand dollars at a hell of interest - 30% per annum. Last December, they gave full money and interest.
[M. Spiridonov]: This is a strong solution. There is even such a reception at the management company, when it comes to investing in a project that is not very obvious, then some such schemes are offered: “We will give money, but on credit for some obligations”. Most people break exactly on this, I watched it more than once. The ideologue project, confident with glittering eyes, says that everything will be cool and need money - well, we will give it, but we will give it a loan. We will issue it as a loan with the possibility of converting into investments, if all goes well. If not good, then you will simply give, do you believe in the project? At this, many break.
[BUT. Ametov]: A decent scheme, in fact. Credit disciplines very cool. There are 2 things that are disciplined - people who work and who need to pay salaries, and a loan that must be repaid.
[BUT. Ametov]: The story here is that money does not come out of airless space, it comes from somewhere for some purpose. There is an investor who wants either to get his money back multiplied, or - to make matters worse - some kind of media giveaway wants. Then he will seriously influence the editorial policy. And for all that you will do. That is, accordingly, if we had a lot of money, we would have one of these two types of investors, all the same there would not be some kind of quiet life. I’m not talking about cases when people do things like “Topfotop”, about which everyone knows when it’s time to spend money in a comfortable way to assert themselves and earn a car and an apartment.
[M. Spiridonov]: Such a thought came to mind while we were discussing business components together with creative ones. Do you think that the movement around or near your site, the movement of hipsters, young people with dynamic thinking, many call it, with their outlook on things, curious young people. Is there a positive change in the minds of young people in this movement? As it is known, many people of the older generation call young people - 16-25-year-olds - lost, as if they are interested only in games and consumption. There is another option in the book "Funky Business": "All you need is sex and shopping." What you say is the point of view of the person in charge who understands the price of money, his word, ready to take responsibility for himself, for some serious deeds, for the same money. Is it yours, your approach to life? Or is it an approach to that group of young people, to hipsters? I am unfamiliar with them, although I am slightly older - I am 33, for me this is already another generation. Are you all or are you with Vasily and your team different?
[BUT. Ametov]: In general, young people were scolded in all years, they always said that young people had already gone bad, it was not clear where the world was heading. It was under Pushkin, it was in the USSR, now it’s the same in Russia. But I can say that we have an average age of a team - 24 years, and all the guys who work with us, aged 18 to 30 years, are all very talented, intelligent, responsible people who have a lot of different interests. They do very cool things. And their friends are also very, for the most part, interesting, good guys who often come to our office. Everyone with whom I communicate does not cause me to think that this is a lost generation. Although, in fact, the majority of these people spent their childhood in the 90s, when no one was engaged in them, but, on the other hand, therefore, it was possible that they were less brainwashed. They thought more about themselves.
[M. Spiridonov]: It is possible. How important is the social component of your project? Are you a social network? How do you position yourself?
[BUT. Ametov]: We are, rather, a social media, not a social network, in the full sense of the word. Our social connections within profiles do not dominate, we have dominated media content. Secondarily, the event service. But at the same time everything is “tied up” by social programs, people can communicate, discuss something, add each other as friends. Watch who goes to what event.
[M. Spiridonov]: So you are superior in the degree of social activity of “Habrahabr”? The most active project in this sense?
[BUT. Ametov]: I think so. Because people don't go to “Habrahabr” for any events, do not exchange photos, do not get to know each other somehow actively ...
[M. Spiridonov]: Do you have a very strong interface out into offline?
[BUT. Ametov]: We are very tightly tied to offline. This is our very serious difference from most other projects.
[M. Spiridonov]: Is it really uninteresting to get into the cage of projects of world brands, the same GQ, the same "Glamor" and so on? It seems to me that there you would look very organic.
[BUT. Ametov]: I, from the very beginning, told us that we never needed an investor and a full life, therefore we take seriously the issue of making money, our independence. So far we have not seen a single investor, not a single person who would come to us with some kind of proposal that we would like, with whom we would like to work. All were Russian companies. Maybe after some time here or in the West it will be interesting for us to work together and somehow develop the project. We are not selling the site at the moment.
Runetology 54 : founder and editor-in-chief of the “Private Correspondent” Ivan Zassoursky
[AND. Zasursky]: ... but in fact I came, it was very funny there, I came, I meet with them, they say “What do you want?”, I say “I need a position in the company, I want to be deputy general director for PR” , they are “OK”. Now, I say, I want so much money, and, by the way, I didn’t give much, they immediately agreed.
[M. Spiridonov]: Little is how much?
[AND. Zasursky]: Either two, or four asked for thousands of dollars a month. Well, I say, I needed this job, I was a cool PR man, but I was not an Internet researcher, so, honestly, I didn’t really understand what was going on here. But I brought back from America the feeling that you need to do just that, and everything else is secondary, you need to deal with this, and then there will be some future from this. And so I didn’t really bargain, I later felt terribly sorry that I had made a bad bargain, and in the end this same Lopatinsky eventually left me without money when we were “divorced” with Rambler. But in fact, he did it not by evil, and had nothing personal in mind, they just had to hide from these shareholders the unfortunates from Prof-Media who bought Rambler, because if they just spoke with me, they would would do things differently.
[M. Spiridonov]: Yeah, how would they do it?
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, firstly, they probably would not buy, I was a PR manager who did resuscitation of a company in a coma, which with the help of artificial kidneys, artificial lungs, artificially inflated something, as if, like a frog. But in principle, I am not offended, because when you do such a work and as a result someone suffers as ProfMedia suffered, they certainly did their own stupidity, because they didn’t even meet me, although I was there in plain sight , they didn’t ask anything at all what was happening there, but talked to people who wanted to sell this piece of shit to them. At that time, he was not yet a poo, just the shareholders' priority was very clear - to make money, they had little money for me, they sold the building at Avtozavodskaya and for $ 10 million, what they could do - they did. Therefore, they hired Ira Hoffman as a “stuffed doll”, who simply did not know anything about this business and could speak with the same naivete as I, when I was hired, about everything that shareholders and future customers need to say.
[M. Spiridonov]: But this is interesting, when did you understand everything then?
[AND. Zasursky]: I immediately understood almost everything, when I came to work on the first day, I went to the office, and there people with sad eyes were packing things, it turned out that the moment they hired me, the entire Ashmanov team, 30 people, was fired. And I really come to Rambler, who was in the science park, and there they all pack their bags. Everything was immediately clear. And it was clear that there had been a team there for a whole year, which had been lying about the figures for a whole year, for a whole year people said that the profitability was in fact so-and-so, well, then there was no profitability, I'm sorry, our audience is, Yandex is lying, that they overtake us. In short, this is a terrible story, a company that is lying to itself, which is moving from one clan to another, some kind of a “civil war” inside this Rambler. And I still didn’t get into anything, and it took me a year and a half to figure it out, and then I started managing the process, that is, I launched Rambler Vision, launched the mobile version, did a lot more, but honestly, I not really happened, objectively speaking. The meaning of this is that, in fact, shareholders are interested in stability, they were not very worried about the fact that some local success would arise or not, it’s important that the company remained “in one piece” so that it could be sold. Therefore, this experience was very useful for me, because I was terribly angry, there was such a strange story, there was such a girl, Tanya Zhelonkina. Which mail.ru came to us, which, as it were, seized control, became executive director, but she was, as they say, disloyal, that is, she “looked at the door” all the time, and all the time she thought that she was about to "Throw". My task was to calm her down constantly, to try to ensure that her struggle for power did not lead to the collapse of the projects that I started. Oleg Bunin was still there, such a character, he is also now quite noticeable, who was the head of the technical service, I helped him grow in this position and together we took photos, videos, and everything else. I can not say that we did everything perfectly, but Rambler is just a tin, that is, at that moment it was almost impossible to do anything and at the same time there was a very curved management system when a shareholder sits above everything who does not want that something touched, because it will look bad and incomprehensible, it will then turn out to sell it or not, which is just waiting for a good moment to sell it, and at the same time it is clear that the situation is getting worse and worse.
[M. Spiridonov]: You listen, there was just some kind of nightmare, civil war and devastation.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, it was my life, it was my nightmare, people who know me, they know what it cost me.
[M. Spiridonov]: And tell me, did the situation change somehow? They are still quite self, that is, a Rambler gives signs of life completely, even if it doesn’t look perfect.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well ... What number is the Rambler? Where is he? What it is? What does this company do? What do they specialize in?
[M. Spiridonov]: Well, Rambler is a kind of media portal with a search of its own, not the best, yes, of course, but the old audience still holds on to it.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, I don’t want to say anything bad about Rambler, you know, I think that Rambler, in general, is the highest being, this disembodied omniscient some kind of being, powerful, whom I served for many years, and don’t want to betray him even now, but I can say that the business of this corporation has evolved from bad to worse, from worse to catastrophe. The catastrophe has come now, on the one hand it is a popular website, but on the other hand, there is nothing unique there and even the Top 100 is now impossible to use after they have redone it. , , , - . , , , , , , , , , , , . , «», , , , - , — . - . - , , , - , -, , PR, , . , , , . , , , «» .
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[. ]:Well, maybe advertising agencies mostly. Some traffic launderers. Well, that is, it's all a fool's game, and I don't want to play the fool. I make deals with real people, then I feel ashamed in front of them, do you understand me?
[M. Spiridonov]: I understand, but how would it be correct then, can you draw a picture of the ideal state of the market?
[AND. Zasursky]: The ideal state of the market is when people, as it were, get exactly the audience they need. And any audience gets exactly the product that they need. Here is the perfect market condition. Well, how to explain it to you, I do not know
[M. Spiridonov]:No, I understand, that is, you think that the current imbalance is that many projects are artificial, with artificial traffic, with an artificial audience and thus deceive advertisers
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[. ]:That is, in this context, it turns out, "Chaskor" will act as a forest health officer.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, you saw the same rating as it were, the top quality media. We entered the top ten. And in this top of high-quality media, which was headed by the tape, there were, of course, different publications, but there was no RIA Novosti there, you know, and what should they do there?
Listen to previous episodes and subscribe to an RSS podcast.Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/96708/
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