ivan-kopylov.narod.ru (also known as www.kopylov.tk[2]) was the personal website of Ivan Kopylov, launched on 31 January 2003[1] on the free hosting service Narod.Ru. The project was directly tied to Nizhny Novgorod: it ran a gateway for free SMS to mobile numbers in the city and Nizhny Novgorod Region[2], had a separate "Nizhny Novgorod" section[1], and the site itself was entered twice into the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day contest in the "Best Personal Site" category[3]. The last web-archive snapshot of the home page is dated 12 February 2008[3].

What the site looked like

The first surviving snapshot was taken on 17 February 2003, two and a half weeks after launch. The page was a feed of short entries about its own development: 31 January 2003 — "Launch of my site"; 2 February — the "Poems" and "Drawings" sections added; 4 February — the "RU-CD-RW" and "Nizhny Novgorod" sections; 6 February — "measures taken for better indexing of the site by search engines"; 9 February — the design refined and ICQ number 331946596 added[1]. There were two contact points, and neither changed for the rest of the site's life: the same ICQ number and the email pod-vodoy@mail.ru[2].

By 2004 the home page, besides the news feed, carried an SMS-sending form, a search form with three search scopes — "on ivan-kopylov.narod.ru", "on Narod.Ru", "on Yandex" — and an English-Russian, Russian-English dictionary "with automatic translation lookup"[2]. At the bottom was a notice that copying materials was permitted "only on condition that the copyright and a link to the official site of Ivan Kopylov are preserved," dated "(C) 2003"[1].

The set of sections grew slowly and in an amateur fashion. To "Poems," "Drawings," and "Nizhny Novgorod" was added "Jokes" — 12 pictures in December 2003, 25 in November 2004, and another 25 in November 2005[3]. In August 2006 a "Photo" section appeared: the author wrote that he had started it "at the numerous requests of acquaintances," and that the hardest shot to get was of the lead singer of the band Splean at a concert[3]. Some entries were devoted to monetization attempts: a 1% discount for site visitors at the online stores porta.ru and digita.ru (August 2004), links to the mailing-list earnings service MailMoney.ru (August 2005), and to the game-item trading platform gamelot.ru (May 2005)[3].

SMS gateway for Nizhny Novgorod Region

The main functional part of the site was a free SMS gateway, launched on 18 December 2003. As the home page stated, messages could be sent from the site "to all GSM mobile phones in the city of Nizhny Novgorod and in Nizhny Novgorod Region with maximum delivery assurance"; the author explained the advantage over "other gateways" by the fact that delivery was handled by the carriers' own service departments without intermediaries[2].

The sender chose a carrier by number prefix, and this list is a ready-made cross-section of the Nizhny Novgorod mobile market of the mid-2000s: MTS (+7 910, numbers 10-xx-xx and 24-7x-xx), Beeline (+7 903, +7 905, later +7 906, numbers 14-xx-xx), MegaFon (+7 920, numbers 13-xx-xx), NSS (+7 831, numbers 15-xx-xx and 37-xxx), Siti (+7 902, +7 904 78, +7 904 30, +7 904 68), and Tele2 (+7 904 39)[3]. The list grew as carriers entered the region: Tele2 was added on 28 February 2004, with the author separately noting that the code after the seven for the new carrier was the same as for NSS and "Siti" — 904[2]. Beeline's +7 906 code appeared in the list on 23 November 2004[3].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet

The site was entered twice into the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day contest, held as part of the "Nizhny Novgorod — Capital of the Volga Region" cultural programme: in 2003 and again on 24 November 2004, both times in the "Best Personal Site" category[3]. The domain made it into the lists of the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating specifically as a participant in the 2004 vote[4]; no vote count is recorded for it, and it does not appear in the Counter.nn.ru rating[4]. The site thus left no measurable trace in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet: it is known as a contest entrant, but not as a site notable for its traffic.

How it closed

The last news item on the home page is dated 22 August 2006 — after that the site was no longer updated, although the SMS form and the dictionary remained in place[3]. In total the web archive preserved 26 captures of the home page; the last of them is dated 12 February 2008[3]. An availability check performed while compiling the archival study recorded the site as unavailable; it did not move anywhere else, and there is no information about the address's current content.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2004 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2008 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)