nnca.ru was the official website of the Nizhny Novgorod Computer Association (NKA), a non-profit alliance of Nizhny Novgorod computer firms that existed from March 2000[1]. The site maintained a list of members, published news of the city's computer market, offered independent equipment expertise, and printed local contact details: in July 2004 the NKA reported moving to Nartova Street, 2, with phone numbers (8312) 138-318, 78-09-23 and 16-99-63[2]. Snapshots of the home page survive in the web archive from December 4, 2001 to December 9, 2011.
The association and its members
As the home page stated, the NKA was "a voluntary alliance of leading computer companies of Nizhny Novgorod for developing civilized relations in the Nizhny Novgorod computer market," while "the NKA does not engage in sales," and the organization's motto was "protection of consumers' lawful rights in the computer market"; the text was signed by executive director V. N. Rybin. The association promised to protect buyers from unscrupulous advertising, substandard supplies, and failure to honor warranty obligations, and to resolve disputes together with its partner — the legal agency "Konsul-NN". In October 2002 the site reported that the NKA had received its own certificate of conformity for computer manufacturing[1].
In 2003 the left-hand column listed the members: the computer agency "Arnika", the salon-store "Vash Kompyuter", the company "Makros-NN", the Nizhny Novgorod information center "Reforma", the "Eko-tekhnologiya" enterprise, the company "R-Style Volga", the computer salon Sunrise, the company "Matro-Kh", CJSC "Nizhegorodsky Tekhnopark", the company "Print-servis", and LLC "Balchug"; the news items recorded new arrivals — from "Matro-Kh" in July 2002 to "Balchug" in July 2003[1]. By 2005 the home page was more cautious: "The NKA's members are not that many — 8 enterprises"[2].
What the site looked like
The 2003 snapshot shows a simple two-column page: on the left, cards for the member firms and an "Advertising" block; on the right, a message to the reader and a news feed with numbering ("news ID #18"), with a search box above the text offering a "On the site / In Yandex" toggle. At the bottom sat a visit counter — 42,621 visits — and the caption "copyright © 2000-2002 www.nnca.ru designed by www.nbx.ru"[1]. By March 2005 the counter showed 126,799 visits, and the site had grown into a small industry portal: "NKA Charter", "NKA Members", a "Directors' Club" block with the subsections "Club Meetings", "Blacklists" and "Forum", "Independent Expertise of Computer Equipment", "Ordering Computer Equipment", "Job Exchange", "List of Computer Firms of Nizhny Novgorod", "Question — Answer" and "Guest Book"[2].
The news items worked as a chronicle of the local market: the opening of the Sunrise salon on Osharskaya Street, 1/2 (phone 19-44-26) in May 2003, preparation of the "Computer Nizhny — 2003" directory, the presentation to the football club "Nika" of a prize from the NKA — a computer with a printer[1]; the opening of the Kanavinsky branch of "Print-servis" at Revolyutsii Square, 4 in May 2004. Separately, on October 1, 2004, the service centers "Matro-Kh", "Vash Kompyuter" and "Balchug" announced they would accept for repair equipment purchased from LLC "Kompaniya Makros" — a voluntary honoring of the manufacturer's system-unit warranty by NP "Sodeystvie i Razvitie NKA"[2].
The Directors' Club and the "blacklists"
The main storyline of the site in the mid-2000s was the Directors' Club of computer firms: according to the description on the home page, it had existed unofficially alongside the association for four years and was only announced publicly shortly before 2005. Among the invited guest speakers were named Andrey Gorodnov ("Altex") and Yuri Kuzmichev ("Magazin Gotovogo Biznesa"). A chronicle of meetings over a single winter: November 19, 2004 — the internet café "Stalker"; November 26 — a meeting titled "Expanding the Business Space" at the Nizhny Novgorod Puppet Theatre; December 14 — a conversation with Natalia Militsa, director of the recruitment agency "Ankor"; December 24 — a New Year celebration at "Druzhkova Kruzhka"; February 24, 2005 — a visit to the consulting group Score; from February 2005 members were offered trial classes of the MBA program at NSTU (NGTU)[2].
The club also ran a "blacklists" project covering employees and clients: it was meant to protect computer business owners from theft and negligence by staff and from non-payment by customers, and questions about the people and organizations named were to be directed straight to the managers who had dealt with them. On the other side, for buyers, an independent technical expertise service operated — issuing findings on equipment completeness, the nature of a fault, and whether repair was worthwhile[2].
Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet and closure
The site was listed in the nn.ru directory as a resource of the Nizhny Novgorod Computer Association, and in the surviving sample of the Counter.nn.ru rating, which underlies the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating, it corresponds to a score of 125 points. In the final vote tally of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day for 2004, nnca.ru is not listed[3].
For the Nizhny Novgorod Internet, the site is notable for its genre: an alliance of offline trading firms running its own resource as a tool of market self-regulation. There are no signs of updates after 2005 in the surviving snapshots; the last snapshot of the site in the web archive is dated December 9, 2011, and the domain nnca.ru is currently unregistered.
Sources
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Home page, 2005 (archive)
- web.archive.org — Results of the Day of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet vote, 2004 (archive)