Nature of the phenomenon

NNRU (www.nn.ru) is "The Main City Website" (of Nizhny Novgorod). In 1999 it became the first private Nizhny Novgorod portal to receive an electronic Mass Media license.

It is known for its forums, the most prominent being the City Forum, Technoforum, Auto Forum, and Complaint Book.

Posts on the City Forum of NN.RU generate the greatest public response, as it is monitored by local journalists, law enforcement, and city authorities.

At present, NNRU is the largest Nizhny Novgorod website, with the highest traffic. More than 2 million unique visitors per month and around 600,000 per week, according to the LiveInternet: NNRU Statistics counter, making it the largest media outlet in the region Internet Resource Rankings in Nizhny Novgorod, as well as one of the leaders in Russia Delovoy Kvartal: Top List. Regional Internet Projects Ranking.

Founders

From the project's founding in 1999, it was owned in equal shares by entrepreneurs Ilya Osipov and Mikhail Iosilevich, who served respectively as technical director (overseeing software development) and community development manager.

In late February 2013, the sale of NN.RU to Hearst Shkulev Media/InterMediaGroup Publishing House was officially announced.

On Business and Technology

Specialists and ordinary users alike have repeatedly noted that NN.RU is one of the most remarkable city websites, both in terms of technical execution and its influence on users.

"It's like a drug — you have to be careful, you get hooked from the very first time," says Hillerien (Anton Evdokimov), a well-known TV presenter and one of the NN.RU forum's active members.

In the opinion of Artem Abramyan, lead developer at Aarki Inc. (USA) and a former Nizhny Novgorod resident: "NNRU was a very innovative website for its time. For example, as early as 2000 it introduced 'private messages,' which later became the de facto standard in social networks. The NNRU developers came up with this technology — which now seems obvious — completely independently. In addition, by the early 2000s NNRU had already applied what is now called 'Gamification.' This is a fashionable approach to user engagement in which everything is designed to make users just as interested in a non-gaming service as they would be in a game. For instance, 'user levels,' virtual goods, achievements, the ability to give gifts, and so on were all used. Naturally, 'treatises' on this subject have since been written, but in 2000 it was absolutely innovative."

Andrey Borisevich, head of the internet department at the Hearst Shkulev Media holding, likewise notes that NNRU and NNOV have successfully established internet advertising sales in Nizhny Novgorod: "…they sell across several platforms at once — NNov, NN, KP — meaning they have complete coverage of Nizhny, and that is very interesting to us." Roem.ru: The publisher of Maxim and Elle has moved into online video and e-commerce



History of NN.RU's Founding

June 17, 2008. NNRU as a legal entity turns 9 years old.

The NNRU Chronicle.

It was the winter of 1999. The Nizhny Novgorod Internet, as a purely technical phenomenon, had already taken shape by that time: as far back as the early 1990s, the first internet service providers had entered the Nizhny Novgorod market, offering internet access alongside other telephone services. Among the first were ZAO Nizhegorodskiye Informatsionnye Seti, the company KIS (today's Agentstvo Delovoy Svyazi), and Sendi.

Figuratively speaking, these companies laid a kind of internet highway through Nizhny Novgorod, along which megabytes of information could travel as if along a busy thoroughfare. But at the time, the roadway of the vast Nizhny Novgorod internet metropolis was practically empty. More precisely, there was no such thing as the Nizhny Novgorod internet at all.

What did exist? Initially, the virtual communication of Nizhny Novgorod residents was limited to email correspondence and participation in newsgroups (for those who did not live through those times: a newsgroup was an internet service resembling modern forums, in which messages were sent to a group of users via email). Later, with the spread of the World Wide Web, the first Nizhny Novgorod websites and personal internet pages began to appear, hosted on Moscow-based web resources.

The history of the Nizhny Novgorod internet began on just such a free Russian hosting service — Khalyava.ru.

So it was the winter of 1999. The founders of the first Nizhny Novgorod internet portal and the main Nizhny Novgorod website NN.RU — Mikhail Iosilevich and Ilya Osipov — not yet acquainted with each other, were both hosting their internet pages on Khalyava.ru. Iosilevich ran a "bear radio" on his page, where he published alternative Nizhny Novgorod news; Ilya Osipov, likewise out of pure enthusiasm, posted jokes and software on his site. And it was his page that, according to Khalyava.RU's internal rankings, topped the list for the number of user visits. Since the front page stated that Ilya was a Nizhny Novgorod native, Misha Iosilevich hastened to congratulate his fellow townsman on his success. That was how they began corresponding, until at last they met in person.

I. Osipov: "When it turned out that Misha lived three blocks from me, he simply got up and came over. That evening we talked for a long time on the sofa in the living room. That's when the idea of creating NN.RU was born — as a central website for all Nizhny Novgorod residents on the internet."

I. Osipov: "Misha suggested creating a catalog of websites belonging to Nizhny Novgorod residents on NN.RU — something like a start page for Nizhny Novgorod internet users. By that point I already had some business experience, so I wanted to turn NN.ru into a proper business project and register it as a legal entity, which is what we ultimately did. The idea that you could make money from an internet resource may seem obvious today, but at a time when there was virtually no internet advertising and virtually no one to buy it, the plan seemed crazy. And yet it worked."

On June 17, 1999, a certificate of registration was obtained for the legal entity OOO NN.RU. NN.RU immediately acquired its first clients — TSS and Moskva-Tur-Nizhny Novgorod, which placed banner ads on the site (notably, both companies are still NN.RU clients to this day). At the time the company consisted of just two people and was based in a borrowed office on Genkina Street. I. Osipov: "It was my father's office — it was cramped and uncomfortable for us. So in the summer of 1999 we finally rented our own office on Studencheskaya Street, opposite the Nizhny Novgorod telephone exchange — a small room on the third floor." At Studencheskaya, NN.RU grew to several employees: the first sysadmin, Sasha Obzhorin, arrived, along with developers Andrey Shaposhnikov, Artem Abramyan, Dmitry Rozhdestvenskiy, and Aleksey Pavlov.

I. Osipov: "Lyosha Pavlov was a brilliant programmer who slept during the day, worked through the night, and could complete any task assigned to him in a single night. We'd leave notes on his monitor explaining what needed to be done and how." At first, Ilya and Iosilevich themselves also handled layout, programming, client acquisition, and even drew mock-ups. Their salaries did not exceed a thousand rubles (at the time that was not enough to live on — it barely covered food), as everything was reinvested into developing the company.

The NN.RU website itself only launched in September 1999, and initially ran covertly on equipment belonging to Svyazinform (today's Rostelecom), with traffic of just 2,000 users per month.

Since NN.RU was conceived as an all-city online resource, one of the site's first tasks was to build an internal city internet community. A city forum opened on NN.RU almost immediately, though it only became successful a year later. Following the city forum, the Complaint Book and the Auto Forum opened on NN.RU.

I. Osipov: "When NN.RU launched, we immediately declared ourselves the main website of Nizhny Novgorod. For a time our front page even bore the stamp 'With the support of the Nizhny Novgorod administration.' However, our good relations with the authorities were absurdly undermined by one of the Nizhny Novgorod officials, after which we simply removed all references to the administration from the site."

Relations with internet providers also got off to a rocky start. "When NN.RU launched, the providers — who by that point had already formed a tight-knit internet community — somehow got the impression that we were eating their bread. We were repeatedly dragged through the mud, even though we were actually helping them sell internet access." Be that as it may, NN.RU found understanding from Commercial Information Networks (KIS), represented by Dmitry Mezin and Andrey Menkov. NN.RU's first servers were hosted with them.

Two weeks after WWW.NN.RU launched, dom.nnov.ru went live, followed a month later by madein.nnov.ru, and then nizhny.ru — all of them vying for the title of Nizhny Novgorod's leading portal. Yet each of them, after existing for a year or a year and a half, was abandoned and shut down. NN.RU survived. Probably because it kept evolving, expanding, reinventing itself — going down and coming back up. And perhaps also because NN.RU never had strategic investors, which meant there was no opportunity to rest on its laurels.

At the end of 1999, Osipov and Iosilevich rented an apartment on Alekseevskaya from distant relatives, and NN.RU moved into a new office. This was a well-known apartment on the second floor, with a www.nn.ru banner displayed across the entire balcony. I. Osipov: "It was the first advertisement in Nizhny Novgorod that anyone had managed to hang on a balcony. The Nizhny Novgorod municipal advertising service even sent us a hostile unofficial email threatening to come and cut down our banner. Later, when the era of such 'shakedowns' was over, we even obtained an official permit for the advertisement." At the Alekseevskaya office, NN.RU finally got a proper Internet connection — a dedicated line instead of a dial-up modem — and the first employees who have stayed with NN.RU to this day arrived: Olga Bykova, manager (now deputy director), who at the time didn't even have a work computer, just a bedside table with a phone; and Andrey Mindubaev, programmer (now lead programmer).

On 28 August 2000, the NN.RU website became the first Nizhny Novgorod internet site to be registered as a mass media outlet.

In early 2002, the internet company finally moved into the well-known office at Piskunova 30, which clients and users of NN.RU came to know well. Although NN.RU never blossomed overnight but instead gradually and steadily established its place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet landscape, it was at the Piskunova office that NN.RU experienced its biggest surge in popularity — from 30,000 users in January 2002 to 500,000 in May 2007.

And today, nine years on, NNRU is the city's leading internet company. Two offices: a sales office and a technical office. Several subsidiary projects in Nizhny Novgorod and one in Moscow. And around 70 employees across the entire group of companies.

Interview by Evgeniya Orlova.

Interesting Facts

  • The NNRU forums have an official holiday — "NNRU Forums Day." Every year on 30 March, a group photo is taken at Gorky Square, which is typically attended by the main figures of the City Forum from years past. Mikhail Iosilevich can also be spotted there.

Moderation Policy

"It is not just the City Forum that has reached this dead end — it is, broadly speaking, all of Russia.

NN.RU was built on principles of democracy and openness, on the assumption that all people are brothers, or at least not inclined toward self-destructive behavior. Much the same way, in First President Yeltsin-era Russia, the Constitution and other civic institutions took shape. It was a wonderful time of hope and rapid growth.

But then it turned out that Russia, unfortunately, was not ready for such happiness.

Just as in Russia, after Yeltsin's departure, power quietly concentrated in the hands of one person, so too on NNRU after my departure all "power" over the forums ended up with one person — very tenacious and ambitious. That person is tiggi. With the best of intentions, of course.

Unfortunately, her personnel policy differed little from Putin's — placing thoroughly mediocre but personally loyal moderators everywhere. Through her efforts, my own rights were curtailed: I can no longer appoint new moderators, cannot lift bans issued by Matya, cannot remove her moderators. I think that she and her moderators would be perfectly happy with the following outcome: that I leave the City Forum now and try to build something resembling a decent community at least here, on the Politics forum.

After all, as we know, in Russia everything depends not on the law but on how it is "applied."

Under the constitution, a President may not serve more than two terms — but "non-consecutively" is apparently fine )) The right to hold a rally is a constitutional right — but also a criminal offence )) And there are countless other examples of good Rules and mechanisms being trampled in their "application."

So perhaps the only way to achieve a comfortable civic existence is through "public oversight." When rude troublemakers and provocateurs stop being "given a hand," when they are driven off the forum not by moderators but by ordinary users, when unjustly banned members are brought back through mass protests, and when all issues are discussed openly and transparently — then there will be no need for any "hammers," "levels," or other such tools for everyone to feel comfortable and at ease."

Mikhail Iosilevich, forum "Nizhny Novgorod Politics"

Links

See Also