alco.nn.ru was the website of the industry project "Alco-Inform", a Nizhny Novgorod information resource for participants in the alcohol market: producers, importers, wholesalers, excise warehouses and retail networks[7]. The project lived in the Nizhny Novgorod domain zone nn.ru, accepted press releases at alco@nn.ru[2], and was hosted by "NN.RU", which advertised itself as "the best hosting for companies in Nizhny Novgorod" and listed the phone number (8312) 19-77-99[4]. Legible snapshots of the home page survive for 2003–2005[1][3].

What the site looked like

The home page was divided into a narrow left-hand menu and two columns of content. The navigation held the items "Home page", "News", "Virtual showcase", "Representations on the server", "If you are a professional", "If you are a consumer", "REGISTRATION (free)", "Forum" and "About the project"[1]. Below it sat a login form with the fields "Login" and "Password": part of the material was open only to registered companies[2].

The site displayed its own counters. In April 2003 the "Database statistics" block reported 31 companies and 211 products listed in the catalogue, while "Visit statistics" reported that 50 visitors had come to the site the day before, with 338 hits recorded[1]. The right-hand column carried a "VIP Showcase" block; on 23 April 2003 it featured the Georgian wine "Senakuri"[1].

What it offered

The project was built around two tracks — professional and consumer. As the home page put it, "Alco-Inform" was "an information system for all participants in the alcohol market: producers, importers, wholesalers, consumers"; the professional section gathered "extensive information on legislation, products and companies of the alcohol market" and ran an "electronic industry forum", while the "If you are a consumer" section held "the history, classification and descriptions of beverages, contests, humor and much more"[2]. The catalogue description of the project added court practice and certification to the list[7].

In the spring of 2003 the project's news recorded its ongoing work: on 22 April a new version of the catalogue of registered companies with selection and sorting was announced, on 13 April the "Alcohol and cultural life" section opened with presentations, tastings, contests and festivals, and on the same day a collection of Soviet-era anti-alcohol posters was added to the "humor" section[1].

The project's local chronicle was distinctly of Nizhny Novgorod. On 18 April 2003 the site reported on the qualifying round of the international bartenders' competition BACARDI-MARTINI GRAND PRIX 2003, held at the disco club "Picasso", and on 17 April on Ekaterina Rozhdestvenskaya's photo project "Private Collection", which Alfa-Bank presented at the Nizhny Novgorod State Art Museum in the Kremlin with the participation of "Bacardi-Martini"[1].

The general news feed was broader than the region: in the autumn of 2003 it carried reports of a 6.2% drop in vodka and liqueur production in Russia, distillery utilization at 13.1% in Saratov Region, the seizure of more than 12,500 liters of alcohol in Bashkortostan, and tightened requirements for alcohol and tobacco advertising[2]. Next to it hung a poll, "Which vodka brand do you prefer?", with the options "Istok", "Kristall", "Veda", "Your region's brand" and "other"[2]. Companies were invited to publish their own news item for free in the general section until 1 December[2].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

In the nn.ru directory — the "directory of Nizhny Novgorod websites" — "Alco-Inform" was listed under three different categories at once: "Firms (Enterprises): Consumer goods, Stores: Food products"[5], "Directories and search engines: Internet catalogues"[6] and "Projects: Production, Goods"[7]. Next to each site the directory printed a "Rating" line — a reading from Counter.nn.ru. For "Alco-Inform" in the autumn of 2003 it grew from one snapshot to the next: 139 on the page from 17 September[5], 197 on the page from 24 September[6], and 206 on the page from 1 October[7]. Against our collected sample of the counter, this is noticeably above the middle of the list — for more on the sample itself see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

In the surviving results table of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote for 2004, the domain alco.nn.ru does not appear[8]: the narrowly specialized project stayed outside the scope of the mass vote, although it held a firm place in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet.

How it closed

Development stopped well before the site disappeared. The last date in the news feed is 18 November 2003, and the snapshots from both 14 June 2004[2] and 11 December 2005[3] show the very same news: for a year and a half the home page went unupdated, still inviting press releases "until 1 December".

The snapshot from 7 June 2007 caught not the site itself but the hosting provider's service page: "The address you requested points to this server, but no resource with this name was found", signed "NN.RU — The best hosting for companies in Nizhny Novgorod", with phone and fax (8312) 19-77-99 and 19-97-84[4]. This is the last snapshot of the address in the web archive; the domain alco.nn.ru no longer exists today.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2005 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2007 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, category "Firms (Enterprises): Consumer goods, Stores: Food products", 2003 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, category "Directories and search engines: Internet catalogues", 2003 (archive)
  7. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, category "Projects: Production, Goods", 2003 (archive)
  8. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)