reko.r52.ru was the website of Reko, a Nizhny Novgorod advertising-production firm[1]. The site lived on a third-level domain in the Nizhny Novgorod zone r52.ru, where the firm's mail was also hosted — reko@r52.ru — and the contact phone numbers on the home page were given with the Nizhny Novgorod code (8312)[1]. The firm traced its history back to 1994 and described its work as operating "on the Nizhny Novgorod market"[1]. The copyright notice on the page was dated 2000[1]; the web-archive crawler first recorded the address in March 2001[4], and the latest home-page snapshot preserved in our records is from 15 December 2003[2].

The firm and its clients

The home page traced Reko's history from 1994 and from its first order: as the home page put it, "the team of the firm 'REKO,' then still very young, carried out an order for the Molodyozhny trade house"[1]. The client list that followed named the Tokyo salon, the newspaper Iz Ruk v Ruki, and the administration of Nizhny Novgorod Oblast[1]. The page framed its own specialization broadly — computer design and an "individual approach"[1]; the entry in the nn.ru Nizhny Novgorod directory put the same thing more briefly: "production of a variety of advertising goods: representational, promotional"[5].

A separate item on the page was devoted to charity: the firm stated that it took on the production of business cards and envelopes for "institutions with low ability to pay" free of charge or at large discounts[1].

What the site offered

Reko's home page was, in essence, a single "About the company" text, a notable part of which was a list of machines, each said by the firm to represent a separate service. The silkscreen printing machine, the page stated, made it possible to apply an image "to any surface," not only by heat-stamping; alongside it, the firm printed branded envelopes, invitations, postcards, and business cards[1]. The "MultiCam" computer-numerically-controlled milling machine was described as a tool for precision cutting, computer engraving, and milling of plastic, glass, wood, and metals[1]. The heat-transfer machine, according to the site's description, applied a full-color image to cotton fabric and viscose: the image was first created on a laser printer, then transferred onto the fabric[1]. The "TAMPO PRINT" pad-printing machine was responsible for applying information to various materials and non-flat surfaces[1]. The page described the promotional-goods side of the business through a "vast database" of items, from which the firm undertook to select virtually any souvenir[1].

The page ended with a direct invitation to call: "simply call the phone numbers: (8312) 30-38-21, 30-49-06, or send your message by e-mail: reko@r52.ru"[1]. At the bottom, besides the copyright line, stood the line "Coding by Info-online" — apparently a credit to whoever built the site[1].

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod internet

The Reko site is a typical example of the first wave of corporate presence in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet: a business-card page for a production firm, where the internet stood in for an advertising brochure and everything else was settled by phone. It entered our census through the directory of the nn.ru Nizhny Novgorod catalog, not through the rating: in the directory snapshots from 25 April 2002, Reko appears marked "Rating: none" in two sections at once — "Firms (Enterprises): Advertising: Outdoor advertising"[5] and "Advertising: Printing, business cards, souvenirs"[6]. The site does not appear in the surviving samples of the Counter.nn.ru counter, and no votes for it are recorded in our data. In the published results table of the 2004 Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, the domain reko.r52.ru likewise does not appear[3]. For more on how the sample is put together and what a site's absence from it means, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

Last traces

Between the two snapshots present in our sample, the home page did not change: the texts from 24 November 2002 and from 15 December 2003 match word for word, down to the 2000 copyright notice[1][2]. The December 2003 snapshot is the latest preserved in our records; how many further snapshots of the address lie in the web archive, and when the site disappeared, our materials do not show[4]. As of the compiling of this entry, the address reko.r52.ru does not load, and the archival materials available to us say nothing further about the subsequent fate of the firm Reko itself.

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2002 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Home page, 2003 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — Results of the Nizhny Novgorod Internet Day vote, 2004 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — List of reko.r52.ru snapshots in the web archive (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "Outdoor advertising" section, 25 April 2002 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, "Printing, business cards, souvenirs" section, 25 April 2002 (archive)