autoimage.nn.ru was the site of the advertising and information magazine "AvtoImidzh" ("AutoImage"), published by ZAO "Poliks"[1]. The magazine was aimed at motorists and distributed free of charge; the same page announced a daily radio programme called "DJ Avto" ("DJ Auto"), broadcast "on the airwaves of 'Radio 101 in Nizhny Novgorod'"[1]. The site operated in the nn.ru zone; the home-page snapshots we collected are dated October 2000 to January 2001[1][3]. The domain no longer exists.

The "AvtoImidzh" magazine

The publication was described on the site in a single line: a "full-colour advertising and information magazine in A5 format for motorists"[1]. The same text set out its distribution model: the magazine was handed out free of charge to subscribers of the "Sotel" cellular network, to service-station customers, and through car-parts shops[1]. The stated print run was 5,800 copies[1].

What the site looked like

The surviving text of the home page fits into a few blocks. The header carried the publisher's particulars — ZAO "Poliks", three phone numbers (68-27-37, 61-13-96, 62-11-18), and the email address polyx@kis.ru[1].

A separate section was titled "Virtual issues of the magazine are now available"; it listed four issues — June, October, November, and December 1999[1]. The dating is telling: in the October 2000 snapshot, the December 2000 snapshot, and the final January 2001 snapshot alike, the list of electronic issues stayed the same and stopped at December 1999[1][2][3]. Over the not quite three months the snapshots span, the page text did not change at all, and the most recent issue posted lagged more than ten months behind the first snapshot.

"DJ Avto" on "Radio 101"

The second block of the page was given over to the radio programme "DJ Avto", a "daily information-and-entertainment music radio programme", as the home page put it[1]. Its broadcast time was given as weekdays from 12:00 to 13:00, "on the airwaves of 'Radio 101 in Nizhny Novgorod'"[1]. Its content was described as follows: alongside music by leading foreign and domestic performers, the programme carried information about roads and cars[1].

Thus "AvtoImidzh" was not just a magazine: under one brand the publisher ran a print magazine, a daily radio hour, and a website.

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

At the bottom of the page was a line about the technical side of things: "(c) 2000 'Poliks' / Internet support: the firm 'NN.RU' and the 'Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Hub'"[1]. This credit does not say who actually built the page, but the publisher's own statement is that outside organisations handled the site's support.

The project's Nizhny Novgorod connection is evident from the page itself: the radio programme aired "in Nizhny Novgorod", support was provided by the firm "NN.RU" and the "Nizhny Novgorod Automobile Hub", and the site's address belonged to the nn.ru zone[1].

In our sample, the site appears in the overall top of the Counter.nn.ru counter ranking for 2000; our materials contain no numeric ranking value or traffic data. For more on the methodology and the data, see the article on the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

The site's fate

In our sample, only three snapshots of the home page survive, and all three have identical content[1][2][3]; the last is dated 19 January 2001[3]. The domain autoimage.nn.ru does not exist today. On when and why the site stopped working, and on the further fate of the magazine, ZAO "Poliks", and the "DJ Avto" radio programme, the materials available to us contain no information.

The site belongs to the early Nizhny Novgorod Internet — a layer of sites attached to offline publications, of which only archived home-page snapshots remain.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2000 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2000 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)