vrchat.ru ("VR CHAT") was a web chat that had existed since 1998[1] and was listed in Nizhny Novgorod directories and rankings: it appeared in the "Projects" section of the regional counter Counter.nn.ru[2] and in the "Directory" of the nn.ru portal, which presented itself as a "directory of Nizhny Novgorod websites"[3]. The project's full name in the counter's directory was "VR CHAT — a place for virtual meetings of interesting people"[2]. The chat itself is visible in the web archive as of January 2001[1]; by October 2015 the domain was serving a hosting-provider placeholder page[4], and by 2016 an unrelated video-chat service had taken its place[5].

What the chat was like

The snapshot of the home page from January 16, 2001, opened with the headline "VR CHAT — Welcome" and an announcement of a technical novelty: "VR CHAT now supports browsers based on the Gecko engine (Mozilla, Netscape 6)!"[1] The announcement about support for the new engine stood first on the page, ahead of the description of the service itself.

The service's features were listed right there. As the home page put it, the chat had "a nice interface, convenient conversation history, two modes of private communication, a bulletin board, rooms for discussions on various topics"[1]. The project's stated mission, formulated on the same page, read: "We sought to create an atmosphere in which everyone could express themselves with dignity"[1]. In the page's keywords, the owners described the audience through the words "interesting people", "virtual communities", "search for new people by interests", "unconventional"[1].

Two addresses were given for contact: info@vrchat.ru for cooperation proposals and support@vrchat.ru for technical issues[1]. Neither a postal address nor a phone number appeared on the home page.

The same page displayed a numbered list of ten chat participants. Among the nicknames listed: "veter-razvedchik (vr)", "Dacik (Kont)", "TannyGoldish (tanny)", "Ten Shin Bugeysya (Ten_Shin...)", "-Druxa- (AnDruxa)", "Sverchok Ril (trado)", "Tarasus (Tarasus)", "Mysh (loui)", "Dyadyushka Yulius (gemini)"[1]. At the bottom stood the developer's signature: "vr graphics, 1998–2001"[1] — the same two letters as in the chat's name and in the nickname of the participant heading the list.

Place in the Nizhny Novgorod Internet

"VR CHAT" appeared in both regional metrics of the time. In the counter.nn.ru statistics table for the "Projects" section (snapshot of December 17, 2000), it held the ninth position: counter — 3,133; rating — 92.45; hits — 21[2]. The section was large — pagination ran as far as positions 141–160[2]. Its neighbors on the list were "LoveBook" (eighth place, 32 hits) and the statistics page of "NN Counter" itself (tenth, 19 hits), while the top of the section was held by "Mp3-kollektsiya" (an Mp3 collection) with 554 hits[2]. For more on how this data slice is structured, see the Archival study of the Nizhny Novgorod internet from the counter.nn.ru rating.

In the nn.ru directory, the chat was placed in the branch "Projects: Entertainment and Leisure: Communication"[3]. In the snapshot from April 25, 2002, it was listed under the name "VR CHAT for interesting people" with the description "Everything you need for interesting, cozy conversation" and a rating of 162.42 — tenth of twenty-five sites in the section[3]. The top of the list was held by the portal itself, "nnov.ru — a server for Nizhny Novgorod residents" (28,838.65), "VebAska Virtual Communication Server" (3,527.97), and "Gorodskoy Forum (Nizhny Novgorod)" (2,348.27); below "VR CHAT" came "NewsGate — NNTP and Fido conference", "Dating in Nizhny Novgorod", "Chatik", and "Virazhi Lyubvi — Chat"[3]. In other words, in the crowded niche of Nizhny Novgorod online communication — where the city forum, the "Nizhegorodsky Chatok" gallery, and the "First Dzerzhinsk Forum" coexisted on a single screen — "VR CHAT" held the middle ground, trailing the portals by two orders of magnitude but ahead of a dozen and a half chats and forums. More on this niche itself in the article Nizhny Novgorod Internet.

How it ended

A snapshot from October 20, 2015, shows not a chat anymore, but a hosting service page: "Domain not linked to any site! Hosting provider BeGet.ru"[4]. By that point, the site at the domain no longer worked.

In 2016 the domain was taken over by a different project unrelated to Nizhny Novgorod. The snapshot from January 11, 2016, is titled "Video Chat Roulette Free No Registration", with the description "chat roulette video communication with girls and guys from around the world"[5]. The snapshot from October 9, 2016, contains the same set of link phrases[6]. Nothing of the original "VR CHAT" remained here except the address.

When the domain is checked today, the page at vrchat.ru returns the title "vrchat.ru is for sale" — the domain is up for sale[7].

Sources

  1. web.archive.org — Home page, 2001 (archive)
  2. web.archive.org — Statistics of counter.nn.ru, «Projects» section, 2000 (archive)
  3. web.archive.org — nn.ru directory, «Communication» section, 2002 (archive)
  4. web.archive.org — Home page, 2015 (archive)
  5. web.archive.org — Home page, January 2016 (archive)
  6. web.archive.org — Home page, October 2016 (archive)
  7. vrchat.ru — Domain check: title «vrchat.ru is for sale» (archive)