mebius.nnov.ru — the website of the Nizhny Novgorod computer company Mebius (Möbius), which sold computers, laptops, components and office equipment in Nizhny Novgorod[1]. It operated from 2003; the last substantive snapshot of the home page is dated January 2009. In its later version the site presented the company as a “chain of specialised computer stores in Nizhny Novgorod”, an authorised service centre and an online store, with retail outlets on Krasnodontsev Street and Lenin Avenue[3].

What the site was like

The earliest snapshot in the web archive was taken on 1 April 2003. The archive did not preserve the page text at that time — all that survived was the title “MEBIUS — sale of computers, components etc.” and the service description: “The MEBIUS company sells computers, components, printers, scanners and other equipment.”[1]. It is impossible to judge the appearance of the first version from this, but the set of keywords in the markup — computers, components, printers, scanners, monitors, office equipment, software — outlines the firm's original profile[1].

By July 2007 a full-fledged online store was running on the domain. The left-hand menu listed more than two dozen product sections: motherboards, HDDs, cables, video cards, cases, modems, drives, monitors, keyboards, mice, speakers, surge protectors, office equipment, software, ready-built computers, laptops, “everything for laptops”, PDAs, accessories, cartridges and refills, furniture, consumables, service spare parts, TV and sound cards, corporate services, stationery and services; separate items read “Credit price list (zip)” and “Retail price list (zip)” — the price lists were posted as downloadable files[2]. The utility navigation included the addresses of the service centres, a discount page, delivery terms, a “For legal entities” section, warranty and service, and in the footer a dealer login, a site map, “About the company” and “Credit lines”[2].

The contacts on the 2007 page were the telephone numbers (8312) 57-60-57, 166-030, 166-031 and 70-97-89[2]. As the home page reported, the company's specialists helped customers choose “from more than 150 laptop models”, and buying a laptop on credit in Nizhny Novgorod “will take only 15 minutes”; a 3% discount was promised for orders placed through the online store[2]. The special offers featured Voyager V500L laptops with an Intel Core Duo T2300 for 29,990 roubles, a Partner W500L for 18,990, an Acer Aspire 5102WLMi for 28,450, clearance IRU laptops for 17,990, a Prestigio P372 monitor for 5,990 and a Samsung CLP-300 colour printer for 8,700 roubles[2]. The storefront was rounded out by an IT news feed (entries dated 6 July 2007 — on contextual advertising in the Runet, the iPhone, Google Earth, tests of AMD Barcelona) and a box with exchange rates from rbc.ru: 25.7305 roubles to the dollar and 34.9575 to the euro as of 7 July[2].

Stores and brand line-up: the 2009 snapshot

In the snapshot of 22 January 2009 the home page gives two addresses: 4 Krasnodontsev Street, telephone 416-60-30, and 76 Lenin Avenue (by the Proletarskaya metro station), telephone 253-44-36[3]. The company described itself as a chain of specialised stores, an authorised service centre and an online store; it handled corporate service contracts for businesses and government institutions and delivered office equipment to order[3]. The laptop range was advertised under the brands Asus, Sony, Acer, Toshiba, Samsung, Fujitsu Siemens, HP, LG, Dell, Benq, Panasonic, Prestigio, Rover Book and Bliss, amounting to “more than 100 models of computers, laptops, monitors and printers”; licensed software, components, purchase on credit, repair and upgrades were listed separately[3]. The 3% discount for ordering through the online store was still in place here, and the special offers featured an ASUS M70SA laptop, an AOC 19 LM 929 monitor and a Prestigio Adelante 364 multimedia device for 17,000 roubles[3].

The same snapshot shows that by then the site was being maintained unevenly: the exchange rates were updated (32.7991 roubles to the dollar and 42.6454 to the euro as of 23 January), while the “Latest news” feed still stood on entries from 5–6 March 2008 — almost a year behind the date of the snapshot[3].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The site entered our census through the materials of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day competition[4]. It made no notable showing there: no votes are recorded for it in the results, nor has any position in the regional Counter.nn.ru rating survived[4]. For a retail site this is the usual picture: visitors were brought in not by a website competition but by the price list and the telephone number. In the overall cross-section of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet, Mebius was a typical representative of its most crowded sector of the mid-2000s: computer retail, for which the website served as a catalogue, a price list and a directory of addresses (see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating).

How it closed

Substantive snapshots of the home page end in 2009[3]. The web archive's last request to the address is dated 12 October 2010[5]; from 2010 onwards the census records the domain as parked — a placeholder page with no content[5]. What became of the Mebius company itself after the site went away is not reported by the available material.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2007 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Home page, 2009 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day voting results, 2004 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Last web archive request to the address, 2010 (archive)