Runetology: now also in the text
For many months now, our listeners have been actively asking us to make transcripts of Runetology conversations. Like, reading an interview is more convenient than listening. Indeed, it is often difficult to find the time and opportunity for thoughtful listening to a podcast lasting an entire hour. Sometimes it’s easier and more comfortable to get acquainted with the text version of the conversation.
At first we wanted to make separate posts with transcripts, but Habr does not allow publishing such volumes of text (from 60 thousand characters). Therefore, the decryption will be stored on PodFM.ru. To see them, you need to click the button "Text version of the issue", which is under the player on the podcast page ( example ).
So far, text versions are not available for all podcasts. As an experiment, we decided to first decipher the four issues of Runetology in May. Under the cut - the most interesting clippings from an interview with Alexei Kostarev (i-Jet, "Happy Farmer"), Artem Geller (kremlin.ru), Alexey Ametov (Look At Me) and Ivan Zasursky (Chaskor). Who likes to read rather than listen - you are here.
[M. Spiridonov] : In 2007, you saw what was happening on Facebook and you immediately started to engage in social applications?
[A. Kostarev]:That's right. The first game was "Mafia", it appeared even earlier than social networks, social games. We made the Mafia and did not know where to go with it. That is, just hang it on some site, for example, on mafia.ru, which was obvious, but do you need to lure users there somehow? Faced with the fact that advertising costs are not comparable with the cost of development, and we had no money. And once again, when I did not know a single person on the Russian Internet, I wrote a letter to those companies that might be interested in Yandex, Rambler, and Mile.ru. I was surprised, but the next day I was answered by Yandex and Rambler. We arrived and the guys listened to us. And now, the Rambler company, Alexei Sadonov, who headed the gaming direction then (and later went to Mail.Ru, although he’s already left now) ... Alexey believed in us, and even taking into account the fact that there were only casual games on the Rambler, and ours nevertheless absolutely did not fit the format, but it was some kind of innovation at that time. There were no social applications, but there were friends in this game, you need to communicate in it, it was multiplayer, many people know this game from children's camps. He believed in us, and we hung the Mafia on the Rambler portal, an audience came to us, and this was a turning point.
[M. Spiridonov]: How did it look? What is the main turning point?
[A. Kostarev]:Users came to us. At first there were few of them, about 30 people. After 30 people, we could not cope with this stream, our server went down. We are nothing, we again faked a little server. We allocated 50 people. Then we reached the numbers of 2000 people online and somehow withstood such loads. At that time, in my opinion, taking into account all the optimizations, we tried about 100 business models, fought for every percent, for every ruble, although we joked that together we earn a bottle of beer - and this went on for six months. Until applications on Facebook appeared. At that moment, we realized that the industry had begun. For a very long time we could not understand the phenomenon of “games with friends”, it seemed to us that the “Mafia” was an ideal game. This is not true, it always happens with the developer - any product seems better than others. We pulled away from this We also moved the Mafia in the states on Facebook, and there we gained enormous experience, translated it into 7 languages. And at some point in the USA, I realized that social networks will not only be on Facebook, they will develop further - Orkut in Brazil, as an example. At this point, Google - it was 2008 - began actively promoting its open social platform. I thought that once again we can make another breakthrough. I didn’t have a bicycle on the rollers at that time yet, I already went to the venture capitalists on a bicycle - I came to Google. "I have such a project, you are moving open social, you need examples of successful games, now we are on Facebook, but we want to move on." I came to American Google. I found out the contacts of the person who was responsible for this area in Google and wrote to him. In the Valley, this is very simple - if you are interested in some person from a large or small company, then it is very easy to find recommendations for him. You just ask the guys and there is at least one who knows someone, for example, from Google. You get contacts right away, call the person and make an appointment. No costumes, arrangements, and so on. An hour later you are already meeting the right person in jeans and a T-shirt. Google suggested translating the Mafia into 4 languages, as open social was promoted in a number of countries. And Google made this translation ourselves, we went to these social networks, although not to say that we got some kind of global result. you call a person and make an appointment. No costumes, arrangements, and so on. An hour later you are already meeting the right person in jeans and a T-shirt. Google suggested translating the Mafia into 4 languages, as open social was promoted in a number of countries. And Google made this translation ourselves, we went to these social networks, although not to say that we got some kind of global result. you call a person and make an appointment. No costumes, arrangements, and so on. An hour later you are already meeting the right person in jeans and a T-shirt. Google suggested translating the Mafia into 4 languages, as open social was promoted in a number of countries. And Google made this translation ourselves, we went to these social networks, although not to say that we got some kind of global result.
I will give one such example, an image. When we last talked with my friend - a very famous startup in Silicon Valley, InvisibleCRM, Vlad Voskresensky - when I asked him: "What can you say about Silicon Valley?" He said: "I had a situation, a week later when I arrived, I was invited to a party ...". The whole valley consists of parties, interpriners, people who do something, they all communicate with each other. He comes to this party, there was an American who asked him: "Vlad, where are you from?" "I am from Kiev". “I do not understand, where are you from? Where do you live, where do you live here? ” "I live in Sunnyvale." That is, nobody cares where you lived before, where you were before. If you lived here for 1-2 days, if you came to this hangout Interpriner, if you were there, you are already local. There are all the people who arrived, and this is the most important thing. Unlike Europe, Asia and so on, where you are still a stranger
[M. Spiridonov]: That is, there are no locals there, are everyone who came in large numbers there?
[A. Kostarev]: When I got into the incubator, the technopark came in, there were about 45 flags hanging there. There was no Russian, there was not a single Russian company. The most famous business center. Accordingly, we were the first Russian company there. Before us, there was not a single Russian company there, although they were from all other countries of the world.
[M. Spiridonov]: Russian flag hung?
[A. Kostarev]: Yes!
[M. Spiridonov]: You bought, I'm afraid to lie, a “Happy Farmer” from a Chinese company for about $ 100 thousand. Right?
[A. Kostarev]:Absolutely wrong. To be honest, we have not bought products and are not buying so far. The only scheme that we work on is profit sharing. We offer to make money with an American company, either Russian or Asian. We will give you users, we will tell you how to earn this money, help you enter other markets. We agree without money. And we will agree without money.
[M. Spiridonov]: Mr. Medvedev himself somehow participated in the creation of the site? Looking at some sketches, giving some comments?
[A. Geller]: At the landmark stages of the work process, of course. Well, I can distinguish at least three such stages - this is the concept and descriptions of the portal, the adoption of the design and the finalization of the process, the project. The president approved what happened in the end, and the site started from that moment.
[M. Spiridonov]: How did you formulate for yourself, and you formed site tasks in a team with the gentlemen from the Kremlin? What is he for?
[A. Geller]: For people in the first place. It does not perform any other functions.
[M. Spiridonov]:Well, people need bread, circuses, some kind of entertainment. “For people” is a very general answer.
[A. Geller]: Objectively disclose the full range of information. Saturation with all possible technological convenient accessible things. We thought a lot about accessibility, we thought a lot about socialization, and this has found application in some aspects of the site. Globally, no project task was formed. There is no paragraph that spoke with pompous words about something that the project should carry ideologically. It should be democratic, convenient and affordable, and social. These are the most important things.
[M. Spiridonov]: As you said, one of the coordinators or maybe Mr. Medvedev himself about what he wants to see? After all, they go to the site and see it as if it were a virtual alter ego?
[A. Geller]: We proposed and with our decisions either agreed or rejected them. They suggested it themselves, which is very rare, by the way, in the client part of the work. They expressed interesting things.
[M. Spiridonov]: Can we say that this site fulfills the task of presenting every moment in time, location, activity and generally life of the President of Russia? Or not?
[A. Geller]: Yes, but these questions are distributed there in different parts of the portal. Actually, the part that was specifically done by the Experienced Creative Bureau was that you follow the link kremlin.ru.
[M. Spiridonov]:And why is the site of the President of Russia rather impersonal, as it seems to me? No photographs in a hat, or any such elements directly related to Mr. Medvedev, only the words “President of Russia”, coat of arms, period.
[A. Geller]: This is not the site of the President of Russia Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, but the site of the President of Russia. I would like to emphasize this. This refers to the fact that the successor will use the same resource. Therefore, there is no photograph of the President in a hat. In addition, if we talk about design, we tried to comply with the modern accessible interface trends that have already developed in the country of interfaces. These are operating systems, this is a certain software, we did not want the user to be distracted by beautiful pictures, but come to the site to work, read. Or, in the case of reporters, work.
[M. Spiridonov]: And now, who acts as content managers - you or people from the Kremlin?
[A. Geller]: Of course, the President’s press service. We have nothing to do with the content of the site. We are committed to developing the resource technically, filling it with functionality, and offering some ideas. If they find understanding, we will realize them.
[M. Spiridonov]: And why, by the way, returning to the beginning of the implementation, such terms were chosen, 4 months? Why is there such a rush?
[A. Geller]:Probably, like everything in our country, for a long time everything was born and quickly done. We don’t care what the deadlines were, we had a task to complete in 4 months and we implemented it. We understood with our own heads that this is theoretically real, we rather rigidly built the process of work and we coped with the task.
[A. Ametov]:At first, Look At Me existed as a street fashion blog. And quite successfully developed in this direction, was the leading string-fashion blog in Russia at that time. And at some point, Vasya Esmanov came up with the idea that on the basis of the blog you can build social media. That is, to give people the opportunity to write some posts and plus to create some kind of small social network for this party of people that has developed around this blog. Just at that moment he turned to me, we met, discussed the possibilities of what can be done with this, and then we found the third co-founder, Ekaterina Bazilevskaya. She then worked as the general director of the Oxygen agency at the Leo Burnett agency group. And we also invited her to start doing this together with us, she had extensive experience in advertising on special projects, various strategic plans for clients.
[M. Spiridonov]: Have you invested money in Squad?
[A. Ametov]: They all came together and realized that we still needed to find a team of designers and developers. They came to the Nimbler studio, owned by Anton Gladkoborodov and Kirill Ten. We offered them for a share in the project for "draw and program." Then they threw off 5,000 euros for the salaries of the first employees and some equipment, and began to do it.
[M. Spiridonov]: You said that after 3 weeks they sold the first ad slot and after a few months, I know, they started to payback.
[A. Ametov]:Yes, but we have reached a payback, given that we worked for free. We had some other work on which we earned money. Everything that Look At Me earned, we spent on employee salaries and equipment.
[M. Spiridonov]: And now how are you?
[A. Ametov]: Now the project is in a small plus, because we continue to actively invest. We develop the radio, develop the store, and launch some new editorial projects, such as Village. Accordingly, everything we earn, we try to spend.
[M. Spiridonov]: Was there no external investment at all?
[A. Ametov]:Never. There was credit when the crisis started, and we were pushed seriously enough. And they took a loan of 100 thousand dollars at hellish interest - 30% per annum. Last December, they paid in full both money and interest.
[M. Spiridonov]:This is a strong decision. There is even such a technique with the management company, when it comes to investing in a project that is not very obvious, then some such schemes are proposed: “We will give money, but on credit for some obligations”. Most people break down precisely on this, I have observed this more than once. There is a confident ideologist with sparkling eyes who says that everything will be cool and that money is needed - well, we will give, but we will give on credit. We issue it as a loan with the possibility of conversion into investment, if all goes well. If it’s not good, then you’ll just give it back, do you believe in the project? Many break on this.
[A. Ametov]:Decent scheme, in fact. Credit is very good discipline. There are 2 things that discipline - people who work and who need to pay a salary, and a loan that must be given.
[A. Ametov]:Here the story is that money does not appear from the airless space, it comes from somewhere for some reason. There is an investor who wants to either get his money back multiplied, or - even worse - wants to get some kind of media weight. Then he will very seriously influence the editorial policy. And for everything that you will do. That is, accordingly, if we would have a lot of money, we would have one of these two types of investors, all the same, we would not have some kind of quiet life. I'm not talking about cases when people do some kind of thing - like, "Topfotop" - about which everyone knows when the task is only to spend the money in a comfortable way for themselves in order to assert themselves and earn money for their car and apartment.
[M. Spiridonov]:This thought occurred to us while we were discussing business components along with creative ones. What do you think, the movement around your site or next to it, the movement of hipsters, young people with dynamic thinking, many call this, with their outlook, curious young people. Is there any positive shift in the consciousness of youth in this movement? As you know, many people of the older generation call youth - 16-25-year-olds - lost, as if they are only interested in games, consumption. There is another option in the book “Funky Business”: “All you need is sex and shopping.” What you are saying is the point of view of a responsible person who understands the price of money, in his own word, ready to take responsibility for himself, for some serious actions, for the same money. Is it yours your approach to life? Or is it an approach to that group of youth, to hipsters? I am unfamiliar with them, although I am a little older - I am 33, for me this is another generation. Are you all like that or are you with Vasily and your team different?
[A. Ametov]:In general, it was customary to scold young people at all times, they always said that young people have already gone bad, it is not clear where the world is heading. It was under Pushkin, it was in the USSR, now in Russia it is the same. But I can say that we have an average team age of 24 years, and all the guys who work with us, from 18 to 30 years old, are all very talented, smart, responsible people who have a lot of different interests. They do very cool things. And their friends are also very, for the most part, interesting, good guys who often come to our office. Everyone with whom I communicate does not make me think that this is a lost generation. Although, in fact, the childhood of most of these people passed in the 90s, when no one was engaged in them, but, on the other hand, that’s why, perhaps, they brainwashed less. They thought more themselves.
[M. Spiridonov]: Perhaps. The social component of your project is how important? Are you a social network? How do you position yourself?
[A. Ametov]: We are rather social media, not a social network, in the full sense of the word. Our social connections within the profiles do not dominate; media content dominates. Secondarily, an event service. But at the same time, everything is “tied up” by the social group, people can communicate, discuss something, add each other to friends. See who is attending what event.
[M. Spiridonov]: So you surpass Habrahabr in terms of social activity? The most active project in this sense?
[A. Ametov]:I think yes. Because people do not go to Habrahabr together for some events, do not exchange photos, do not get to know each other actively ...
[M. Spiridonov]: Do you have a very strong interface outside, offline?
[A. Ametov]: We are very rigidly tied to offline. This is our very serious difference from most other projects
[M. Spiridonov]: Is it really uninteresting to get into the cage of projects of world brands, the same GQ, the same "Glamor" and so on? It seems to me that there you would look very organic.
[A. Ametov]:I started telling from the very beginning that we never needed an investor and a well-fed life, therefore we take seriously the issue of making money, our independence. So far we have not seen a single investor, not a single person who would come to us with some kind of proposal, which we would like, with whom we would like to work. All were Russian companies. Maybe after some time here or in the West it will be interesting for us to work together and somehow develop the project. We are not currently selling the site.
[AND. Zasursky]: ... but actually I came, it was very funny there, I came, I meet with them, they say “What do you want?”, I say “I need a position in the company, I want to be deputy general director for PR” They are OK. So, I say, I want so much money, and by the way, I didn’t say much, they immediately agreed.
[M. Spiridonov]: Little is how much?
[AND. Zasursky]:Either two, or four he asked for thousands of dollars a month. Well, I say, I needed this job, I was a cool PR man, but I was not an Internet provider, so, honestly, I didn’t really get into what was going on. But I brought from America the feeling that it was necessary to do just that, and everything else seemed to be secondary, it was necessary to deal with it, and then there would be some future from that. And so I didn’t really bargain, then I wildly regretted that I had done so cheaply, and in the end, the same Lopatinsky left me without money when we “divorced” Rambler. But in fact, he did it for good, and did not mean anything personal, they just needed to hide me from these shareholders of the unfortunate Prof-Media who bought Rambler, because if they just talked to me, they would do things differently.
[M. Spiridonov]: Yeah, but how would they do?
[AND. Zasursky]:Well, first of all, they probably wouldn’t buy it, I was a PR man who did reanimation of a coma company, which, with the help of artificial kidneys, artificial lungs, artificial, was somehow inflated, which means like a frog. But in principle, I’m not offended, because when you do such a job and as a result someone suffers as ProfMedia suffered, they certainly did it out of their own stupidity, because they didn’t even meet with me, although I was there in plain sight , they didn’t ask anything at all what was going on there, but talked with people who wanted to sell this poop to them. But at that time he was still not a poop, just the priority of the shareholders was very clear - to earn money, they had little money for me, they sold the building on Avtozavodskaya and for 10 million dollars, what they could do - they did. Therefore, they hired Ira Hoffman as a "scarecrow,"
[M. Spiridonov]: But this is interesting, when did you understand everything then?
[AND. Zasursky]:I immediately understood almost everything, when I came to work on the first day, I went out to the office, and there people pack their things with sad eyes, it turned out that at the moment when they hired me, 30 people were fired from the whole team of Ashmanov. And I really come to Rambler, who was in the science park, and there everyone packs their bags. Everything was immediately clear there. And it was clear that there was a team for a whole year that lied about numbers for a whole year, people said for a whole year that the profitability was actually such and such, well, then there was no profit, sorry, the audience we have is such and such, Yandex is lying that they overtake us. In short, this is a terrible story, a company that lies to itself, which moves from one clan to another, there was some kind of “civil war” inside this Rambler. And while I still did not cut into anything, and it took me a year and a half to figure it out, and then I started to manage the process, that is, I launched Rambler Vision, launched the mobile version, did a lot of things, but to be honest, it didn’t work out for me, objectively speaking. The meaning is that, in fact, the shareholders are interested in stability, they were not very worried that there would be or would not be any kind of local success, the main thing for them was that the company remained “in one piece” so that it could be sold. Therefore, it was a very useful experience for me, because I was terribly angry, there was such a strange story, there was such a girl, Tanya Zhelonkina. Which one of mail.ru came to us, who, as it were, took control, became the executive director, but she was, as they say, disloyal, that is, she kept looking at the door all the time, and all the time it seemed to her that she was about to "Throw". My task was to constantly calm her down, try to make sure that her struggle for power does not lead to the collapse of those projects that I started. Oleg Bunin was there, such a character, he is also quite noticeable now, who was the head of the technical service, I helped him grow in this position and together we took photos, videos, and everything else. I can’t say that we did everything perfectly, but it’s just that Rambler is tin, that is, even at that moment it was almost impossible to do anything, and at the same time there was a very crooked control system when a shareholder was sitting over everything who doesn’t want that they touched someone because it would look bad and it was unclear whether it would be possible to sell it or not, which was just waiting for a good moment to sell it, and it was clear that the situation was getting worse and worse. which I started. Oleg Bunin was there, such a character, he is also quite noticeable now, who was the head of the technical service, I helped him grow in this position and together we took photos, videos, and everything else. I can’t say that we did everything perfectly, but it’s just that Rambler is tin, that is, even at that moment it was almost impossible to do anything, and at the same time there was a very crooked control system when a shareholder was sitting over everything who doesn’t want that they touched someone because it would look bad and it was unclear whether it would be possible to sell it or not, which was just waiting for a good moment to sell it, and it was clear that the situation was getting worse and worse. which I started. Oleg Bunin was there, such a character, he is also quite noticeable now, who was the head of the technical service, I helped him grow in this position and together we took photos, videos, and everything else. I can’t say that we did everything perfectly, but it’s just that Rambler is tin, that is, even at that moment it was almost impossible to do anything, and at the same time there was a very crooked control system when a shareholder was sitting over everything who doesn’t want that they touched someone because it would look bad and it was unclear whether it would be possible to sell it or not, which was just waiting for a good moment to sell it, and it was clear that the situation was getting worse and worse. I helped him grow in this position and together we took photos, videos, and everything else. I can’t say that we did everything perfectly, but it’s just that Rambler is tin, that is, even at that moment it was almost impossible to do anything, and at the same time there was a very crooked control system when a shareholder was sitting over everything who doesn’t want that they touched someone because it would look bad and it was unclear whether it would be possible to sell it or not, which was just waiting for a good moment to sell it, and it was clear that the situation was getting worse and worse. I helped him grow in this position and together we took photos, videos, and everything else. I can’t say that we did everything perfectly, but it’s just that Rambler is tin, that is, even at that moment it was almost impossible to do anything, and at the same time there was a very crooked control system when a shareholder was sitting over everything who doesn’t want that they touched someone because it would look bad and it was unclear whether it would be possible to sell it or not, which was just waiting for a good moment to sell it, and it was clear that the situation was getting worse and worse.
[M. Spiridonov]: Listen to you, there was just some kind of nightmare, civil war and devastation.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, it was my life, it was my nightmare, people who know me, they know what it cost me.
[M. Spiridonov]: And tell me, did the situation somehow change there? They are still quite imagined, that is, Rambler is quite showing signs of life, albeit not looking perfect.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well ... which number is Rambler? Where is he? What it is? What does this company do? What do they specialize in?
[M. Spiridonov]: Well, Rambler is a kind of media portal with a search of its own, not the best, yes, of course, but the old audience is still holding on to it.
[AND. Zasursky]:Well, I don’t want to say anything bad about Rambler, you know, I think that Rambler, in general, is the highest essence, this is an incorporeal omniscient kind of being, powerful, which I have served for many years, and I do not want to betray him even now, but I can say that the affairs of this corporation, they developed from bad to worse, from worst to disaster. The catastrophe has come now, on the one hand it is a popular website, but on the other hand, there is nothing unique and even the Top 100 is now impossible to use after they redid it. You know, when management changes in a company all the time, all the time everyone hopes that management will pull the company to some level of its own. In fact, usually when it’s not specialists who come to the Internet, at least in Rambler it happened that they always lower the company to their level of understanding, that is, the less people cut into what is happening, they are always fresh, they are always in power, because shareholders take them as fresh, big, put their hopes in them. And Rambler is such a company that was destroyed by such a strange "symbiosis" when the huge role of keeping the company afloat was for technical specialists who were just there with a screwdriver so that they would not crumble on the go, respectively, they were not for some kind of rapid development, the main priority was that nothing fell there. On the other hand, there were constantly some new managers. At some point, I had complete power in the company, but not for long, because the main shareholder left for America for six months, he had some problems, and on a piece of paper with a pencil we painted some budget that I carried out, by PR, by advertising, by product. During this time I I managed to do what I could, and then the shareholder managing lost trust in me and there was a war in which I do not understand why I even participated. Because, if he were older, he could understand that people will “throw” me in the end.
Now, in principle, I have a very good attitude towards Turishcheva, I think that she is smart, but just now it’s a trough with broken eggs, and it’s hard to get a chicken or a cock out of it, or even get something out. But Rambler is my pain, this is because it was dying in my hands, for many years I tried to save it, as a result I went into conflict with the shareholders, they wanted to disperse the tape in general. That is, they had their own priorities, and I took some kind of independent position, and as a manager with an independent position I was left without my half-lemon. You still need to understand that when people hire you, they hire you to do a specific job. If you start to fight for the fate of the company, then what can you count on? Only that then you can tell on a radio show what kind of hero you are.
[M. Spiridonov]:It depends on the degree of awareness of those people and the tasks that they set for the project.
[AND. Zasursky]: The guys earned half a billion, as it were, in total.
[M. Spiridonov]: On the Rambler deal?
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, why? Of course. How much did it cost, this Rambler? Yes, it didn’t cost anything, they kind of made a stuffed animal out of it, and the stuffed animal looked beautiful, and they were able to sell it, because they had two customers whom they could tear among themselves at a price ...
[M. Spiridonov]: ... I see. The situation in the media market in general, online media, of course, how would you describe it, is it standing, moving?
[AND. Zasursky]:Well, ass, ass, in the sense that if people really seemed to know the economy, I think that there would be less news projects on the Internet, because the situation is very difficult for everyone, the situation on the intellectual market is very wrong, some advertising monopolies, some kind of Internet already has its own Video International, which was immediately blown away. I don’t like all this, I don’t think that this system works efficiently, I don’t think that it works fairly, I don’t think that it serves the interests of advertisers properly
[M. Spiridonov]: Whose interests does the advertising agency serve?
[AND. Zasursky]:Well, maybe advertising agencies basically. Washers of some kind of traffic. Well, that is, this is all a fool game, but I do not want to play a fool. I make deals with real people, then I feel ashamed in front of them, do you understand me?
[M. Spiridonov]: I understand, but how would it be then, can you draw a picture of the ideal state of the market?
[AND. Zasursky]: The ideal state of the market is when people get the exact audience they need. And any audience gets exactly the product that she needs. This is the ideal market condition. Well, I don’t know how to explain this to you
[M. Spiridonov]:No, I kind of understand, that is, you think that the bias now is that many projects are artificial, with artificial traffic, with an artificial audience and thus deceive advertisers
[I. Zasursky]:They are killing our entire business. These scumbags kill our whole business because it’s the price that keeps them up, you know? It seems to them that they play some cool game, that they invented a bicycle. In fact, they trade in porn traffic. This is reflected, because when you come to Nokia or somewhere there, you call your prices, they say: “These have so many, why do you have so many?” Because these people actually sell fishki.net, but in a different shell, you know? Therefore, I don’t think that this situation is eternal, because it’s impossible to deceive advertisers endlessly, probably, but for now, this advertising mafia is valid, it’s valid, but I think that Chaskor and I will get to them. You see, we are going to you. So we will tell the truth.
[M. Spiridonov]:That is, in this context it turns out, “Chaskor” will act as a nurse of the forest.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, you saw the same rating, as it were, the top quality media. We are in the top ten. And in this top-quality media, which was headed by the tape, there were, of course, various publications, but there was no RIA Novosti, you know, what should they do there?
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At first we wanted to make separate posts with transcripts, but Habr does not allow publishing such volumes of text (from 60 thousand characters). Therefore, the decryption will be stored on PodFM.ru. To see them, you need to click the button "Text version of the issue", which is under the player on the podcast page ( example ).
So far, text versions are not available for all podcasts. As an experiment, we decided to first decipher the four issues of Runetology in May. Under the cut - the most interesting clippings from an interview with Alexei Kostarev (i-Jet, "Happy Farmer"), Artem Geller (kremlin.ru), Alexey Ametov (Look At Me) and Ivan Zasursky (Chaskor). Who likes to read rather than listen - you are here.
Runetology 51 : co-owner of i-Jet (Happy Farmer and other games) Alexey Kostarev
[M. Spiridonov] : In 2007, you saw what was happening on Facebook and you immediately started to engage in social applications?
[A. Kostarev]:That's right. The first game was "Mafia", it appeared even earlier than social networks, social games. We made the Mafia and did not know where to go with it. That is, just hang it on some site, for example, on mafia.ru, which was obvious, but do you need to lure users there somehow? Faced with the fact that advertising costs are not comparable with the cost of development, and we had no money. And once again, when I did not know a single person on the Russian Internet, I wrote a letter to those companies that might be interested in Yandex, Rambler, and Mile.ru. I was surprised, but the next day I was answered by Yandex and Rambler. We arrived and the guys listened to us. And now, the Rambler company, Alexei Sadonov, who headed the gaming direction then (and later went to Mail.Ru, although he’s already left now) ... Alexey believed in us, and even taking into account the fact that there were only casual games on the Rambler, and ours nevertheless absolutely did not fit the format, but it was some kind of innovation at that time. There were no social applications, but there were friends in this game, you need to communicate in it, it was multiplayer, many people know this game from children's camps. He believed in us, and we hung the Mafia on the Rambler portal, an audience came to us, and this was a turning point.
[M. Spiridonov]: How did it look? What is the main turning point?
[A. Kostarev]:Users came to us. At first there were few of them, about 30 people. After 30 people, we could not cope with this stream, our server went down. We are nothing, we again faked a little server. We allocated 50 people. Then we reached the numbers of 2000 people online and somehow withstood such loads. At that time, in my opinion, taking into account all the optimizations, we tried about 100 business models, fought for every percent, for every ruble, although we joked that together we earn a bottle of beer - and this went on for six months. Until applications on Facebook appeared. At that moment, we realized that the industry had begun. For a very long time we could not understand the phenomenon of “games with friends”, it seemed to us that the “Mafia” was an ideal game. This is not true, it always happens with the developer - any product seems better than others. We pulled away from this We also moved the Mafia in the states on Facebook, and there we gained enormous experience, translated it into 7 languages. And at some point in the USA, I realized that social networks will not only be on Facebook, they will develop further - Orkut in Brazil, as an example. At this point, Google - it was 2008 - began actively promoting its open social platform. I thought that once again we can make another breakthrough. I didn’t have a bicycle on the rollers at that time yet, I already went to the venture capitalists on a bicycle - I came to Google. "I have such a project, you are moving open social, you need examples of successful games, now we are on Facebook, but we want to move on." I came to American Google. I found out the contacts of the person who was responsible for this area in Google and wrote to him. In the Valley, this is very simple - if you are interested in some person from a large or small company, then it is very easy to find recommendations for him. You just ask the guys and there is at least one who knows someone, for example, from Google. You get contacts right away, call the person and make an appointment. No costumes, arrangements, and so on. An hour later you are already meeting the right person in jeans and a T-shirt. Google suggested translating the Mafia into 4 languages, as open social was promoted in a number of countries. And Google made this translation ourselves, we went to these social networks, although not to say that we got some kind of global result. you call a person and make an appointment. No costumes, arrangements, and so on. An hour later you are already meeting the right person in jeans and a T-shirt. Google suggested translating the Mafia into 4 languages, as open social was promoted in a number of countries. And Google made this translation ourselves, we went to these social networks, although not to say that we got some kind of global result. you call a person and make an appointment. No costumes, arrangements, and so on. An hour later you are already meeting the right person in jeans and a T-shirt. Google suggested translating the Mafia into 4 languages, as open social was promoted in a number of countries. And Google made this translation ourselves, we went to these social networks, although not to say that we got some kind of global result.
I will give one such example, an image. When we last talked with my friend - a very famous startup in Silicon Valley, InvisibleCRM, Vlad Voskresensky - when I asked him: "What can you say about Silicon Valley?" He said: "I had a situation, a week later when I arrived, I was invited to a party ...". The whole valley consists of parties, interpriners, people who do something, they all communicate with each other. He comes to this party, there was an American who asked him: "Vlad, where are you from?" "I am from Kiev". “I do not understand, where are you from? Where do you live, where do you live here? ” "I live in Sunnyvale." That is, nobody cares where you lived before, where you were before. If you lived here for 1-2 days, if you came to this hangout Interpriner, if you were there, you are already local. There are all the people who arrived, and this is the most important thing. Unlike Europe, Asia and so on, where you are still a stranger
[M. Spiridonov]: That is, there are no locals there, are everyone who came in large numbers there?
[A. Kostarev]: When I got into the incubator, the technopark came in, there were about 45 flags hanging there. There was no Russian, there was not a single Russian company. The most famous business center. Accordingly, we were the first Russian company there. Before us, there was not a single Russian company there, although they were from all other countries of the world.
[M. Spiridonov]: Russian flag hung?
[A. Kostarev]: Yes!
[M. Spiridonov]: You bought, I'm afraid to lie, a “Happy Farmer” from a Chinese company for about $ 100 thousand. Right?
[A. Kostarev]:Absolutely wrong. To be honest, we have not bought products and are not buying so far. The only scheme that we work on is profit sharing. We offer to make money with an American company, either Russian or Asian. We will give you users, we will tell you how to earn this money, help you enter other markets. We agree without money. And we will agree without money.
Runetology 52 : co-owner of the Experienced Creative Bureau (developer Kremlin.ru) Artem Geller
[M. Spiridonov]: Mr. Medvedev himself somehow participated in the creation of the site? Looking at some sketches, giving some comments?
[A. Geller]: At the landmark stages of the work process, of course. Well, I can distinguish at least three such stages - this is the concept and descriptions of the portal, the adoption of the design and the finalization of the process, the project. The president approved what happened in the end, and the site started from that moment.
[M. Spiridonov]: How did you formulate for yourself, and you formed site tasks in a team with the gentlemen from the Kremlin? What is he for?
[A. Geller]: For people in the first place. It does not perform any other functions.
[M. Spiridonov]:Well, people need bread, circuses, some kind of entertainment. “For people” is a very general answer.
[A. Geller]: Objectively disclose the full range of information. Saturation with all possible technological convenient accessible things. We thought a lot about accessibility, we thought a lot about socialization, and this has found application in some aspects of the site. Globally, no project task was formed. There is no paragraph that spoke with pompous words about something that the project should carry ideologically. It should be democratic, convenient and affordable, and social. These are the most important things.
[M. Spiridonov]: As you said, one of the coordinators or maybe Mr. Medvedev himself about what he wants to see? After all, they go to the site and see it as if it were a virtual alter ego?
[A. Geller]: We proposed and with our decisions either agreed or rejected them. They suggested it themselves, which is very rare, by the way, in the client part of the work. They expressed interesting things.
[M. Spiridonov]: Can we say that this site fulfills the task of presenting every moment in time, location, activity and generally life of the President of Russia? Or not?
[A. Geller]: Yes, but these questions are distributed there in different parts of the portal. Actually, the part that was specifically done by the Experienced Creative Bureau was that you follow the link kremlin.ru.
[M. Spiridonov]:And why is the site of the President of Russia rather impersonal, as it seems to me? No photographs in a hat, or any such elements directly related to Mr. Medvedev, only the words “President of Russia”, coat of arms, period.
[A. Geller]: This is not the site of the President of Russia Dmitry Anatolyevich Medvedev, but the site of the President of Russia. I would like to emphasize this. This refers to the fact that the successor will use the same resource. Therefore, there is no photograph of the President in a hat. In addition, if we talk about design, we tried to comply with the modern accessible interface trends that have already developed in the country of interfaces. These are operating systems, this is a certain software, we did not want the user to be distracted by beautiful pictures, but come to the site to work, read. Or, in the case of reporters, work.
[M. Spiridonov]: And now, who acts as content managers - you or people from the Kremlin?
[A. Geller]: Of course, the President’s press service. We have nothing to do with the content of the site. We are committed to developing the resource technically, filling it with functionality, and offering some ideas. If they find understanding, we will realize them.
[M. Spiridonov]: And why, by the way, returning to the beginning of the implementation, such terms were chosen, 4 months? Why is there such a rush?
[A. Geller]:Probably, like everything in our country, for a long time everything was born and quickly done. We don’t care what the deadlines were, we had a task to complete in 4 months and we implemented it. We understood with our own heads that this is theoretically real, we rather rigidly built the process of work and we coped with the task.
Runetology 53 : Look At Me CEO Aleksey Ametov
[A. Ametov]:At first, Look At Me existed as a street fashion blog. And quite successfully developed in this direction, was the leading string-fashion blog in Russia at that time. And at some point, Vasya Esmanov came up with the idea that on the basis of the blog you can build social media. That is, to give people the opportunity to write some posts and plus to create some kind of small social network for this party of people that has developed around this blog. Just at that moment he turned to me, we met, discussed the possibilities of what can be done with this, and then we found the third co-founder, Ekaterina Bazilevskaya. She then worked as the general director of the Oxygen agency at the Leo Burnett agency group. And we also invited her to start doing this together with us, she had extensive experience in advertising on special projects, various strategic plans for clients.
[M. Spiridonov]: Have you invested money in Squad?
[A. Ametov]: They all came together and realized that we still needed to find a team of designers and developers. They came to the Nimbler studio, owned by Anton Gladkoborodov and Kirill Ten. We offered them for a share in the project for "draw and program." Then they threw off 5,000 euros for the salaries of the first employees and some equipment, and began to do it.
[M. Spiridonov]: You said that after 3 weeks they sold the first ad slot and after a few months, I know, they started to payback.
[A. Ametov]:Yes, but we have reached a payback, given that we worked for free. We had some other work on which we earned money. Everything that Look At Me earned, we spent on employee salaries and equipment.
[M. Spiridonov]: And now how are you?
[A. Ametov]: Now the project is in a small plus, because we continue to actively invest. We develop the radio, develop the store, and launch some new editorial projects, such as Village. Accordingly, everything we earn, we try to spend.
[M. Spiridonov]: Was there no external investment at all?
[A. Ametov]:Never. There was credit when the crisis started, and we were pushed seriously enough. And they took a loan of 100 thousand dollars at hellish interest - 30% per annum. Last December, they paid in full both money and interest.
[M. Spiridonov]:This is a strong decision. There is even such a technique with the management company, when it comes to investing in a project that is not very obvious, then some such schemes are proposed: “We will give money, but on credit for some obligations”. Most people break down precisely on this, I have observed this more than once. There is a confident ideologist with sparkling eyes who says that everything will be cool and that money is needed - well, we will give, but we will give on credit. We issue it as a loan with the possibility of conversion into investment, if all goes well. If it’s not good, then you’ll just give it back, do you believe in the project? Many break on this.
[A. Ametov]:Decent scheme, in fact. Credit is very good discipline. There are 2 things that discipline - people who work and who need to pay a salary, and a loan that must be given.
[A. Ametov]:Here the story is that money does not appear from the airless space, it comes from somewhere for some reason. There is an investor who wants to either get his money back multiplied, or - even worse - wants to get some kind of media weight. Then he will very seriously influence the editorial policy. And for everything that you will do. That is, accordingly, if we would have a lot of money, we would have one of these two types of investors, all the same, we would not have some kind of quiet life. I'm not talking about cases when people do some kind of thing - like, "Topfotop" - about which everyone knows when the task is only to spend the money in a comfortable way for themselves in order to assert themselves and earn money for their car and apartment.
[M. Spiridonov]:This thought occurred to us while we were discussing business components along with creative ones. What do you think, the movement around your site or next to it, the movement of hipsters, young people with dynamic thinking, many call this, with their outlook, curious young people. Is there any positive shift in the consciousness of youth in this movement? As you know, many people of the older generation call youth - 16-25-year-olds - lost, as if they are only interested in games, consumption. There is another option in the book “Funky Business”: “All you need is sex and shopping.” What you are saying is the point of view of a responsible person who understands the price of money, in his own word, ready to take responsibility for himself, for some serious actions, for the same money. Is it yours your approach to life? Or is it an approach to that group of youth, to hipsters? I am unfamiliar with them, although I am a little older - I am 33, for me this is another generation. Are you all like that or are you with Vasily and your team different?
[A. Ametov]:In general, it was customary to scold young people at all times, they always said that young people have already gone bad, it is not clear where the world is heading. It was under Pushkin, it was in the USSR, now in Russia it is the same. But I can say that we have an average team age of 24 years, and all the guys who work with us, from 18 to 30 years old, are all very talented, smart, responsible people who have a lot of different interests. They do very cool things. And their friends are also very, for the most part, interesting, good guys who often come to our office. Everyone with whom I communicate does not make me think that this is a lost generation. Although, in fact, the childhood of most of these people passed in the 90s, when no one was engaged in them, but, on the other hand, that’s why, perhaps, they brainwashed less. They thought more themselves.
[M. Spiridonov]: Perhaps. The social component of your project is how important? Are you a social network? How do you position yourself?
[A. Ametov]: We are rather social media, not a social network, in the full sense of the word. Our social connections within the profiles do not dominate; media content dominates. Secondarily, an event service. But at the same time, everything is “tied up” by the social group, people can communicate, discuss something, add each other to friends. See who is attending what event.
[M. Spiridonov]: So you surpass Habrahabr in terms of social activity? The most active project in this sense?
[A. Ametov]:I think yes. Because people do not go to Habrahabr together for some events, do not exchange photos, do not get to know each other actively ...
[M. Spiridonov]: Do you have a very strong interface outside, offline?
[A. Ametov]: We are very rigidly tied to offline. This is our very serious difference from most other projects
[M. Spiridonov]: Is it really uninteresting to get into the cage of projects of world brands, the same GQ, the same "Glamor" and so on? It seems to me that there you would look very organic.
[A. Ametov]:I started telling from the very beginning that we never needed an investor and a well-fed life, therefore we take seriously the issue of making money, our independence. So far we have not seen a single investor, not a single person who would come to us with some kind of proposal, which we would like, with whom we would like to work. All were Russian companies. Maybe after some time here or in the West it will be interesting for us to work together and somehow develop the project. We are not currently selling the site.
Runetology 54 : founder and chief editor of Private Correspondent Ivan Zasursky
[AND. Zasursky]: ... but actually I came, it was very funny there, I came, I meet with them, they say “What do you want?”, I say “I need a position in the company, I want to be deputy general director for PR” They are OK. So, I say, I want so much money, and by the way, I didn’t say much, they immediately agreed.
[M. Spiridonov]: Little is how much?
[AND. Zasursky]:Either two, or four he asked for thousands of dollars a month. Well, I say, I needed this job, I was a cool PR man, but I was not an Internet provider, so, honestly, I didn’t really get into what was going on. But I brought from America the feeling that it was necessary to do just that, and everything else seemed to be secondary, it was necessary to deal with it, and then there would be some future from that. And so I didn’t really bargain, then I wildly regretted that I had done so cheaply, and in the end, the same Lopatinsky left me without money when we “divorced” Rambler. But in fact, he did it for good, and did not mean anything personal, they just needed to hide me from these shareholders of the unfortunate Prof-Media who bought Rambler, because if they just talked to me, they would do things differently.
[M. Spiridonov]: Yeah, but how would they do?
[AND. Zasursky]:Well, first of all, they probably wouldn’t buy it, I was a PR man who did reanimation of a coma company, which, with the help of artificial kidneys, artificial lungs, artificial, was somehow inflated, which means like a frog. But in principle, I’m not offended, because when you do such a job and as a result someone suffers as ProfMedia suffered, they certainly did it out of their own stupidity, because they didn’t even meet with me, although I was there in plain sight , they didn’t ask anything at all what was going on there, but talked with people who wanted to sell this poop to them. But at that time he was still not a poop, just the priority of the shareholders was very clear - to earn money, they had little money for me, they sold the building on Avtozavodskaya and for 10 million dollars, what they could do - they did. Therefore, they hired Ira Hoffman as a "scarecrow,"
[M. Spiridonov]: But this is interesting, when did you understand everything then?
[AND. Zasursky]:I immediately understood almost everything, when I came to work on the first day, I went out to the office, and there people pack their things with sad eyes, it turned out that at the moment when they hired me, 30 people were fired from the whole team of Ashmanov. And I really come to Rambler, who was in the science park, and there everyone packs their bags. Everything was immediately clear there. And it was clear that there was a team for a whole year that lied about numbers for a whole year, people said for a whole year that the profitability was actually such and such, well, then there was no profit, sorry, the audience we have is such and such, Yandex is lying that they overtake us. In short, this is a terrible story, a company that lies to itself, which moves from one clan to another, there was some kind of “civil war” inside this Rambler. And while I still did not cut into anything, and it took me a year and a half to figure it out, and then I started to manage the process, that is, I launched Rambler Vision, launched the mobile version, did a lot of things, but to be honest, it didn’t work out for me, objectively speaking. The meaning is that, in fact, the shareholders are interested in stability, they were not very worried that there would be or would not be any kind of local success, the main thing for them was that the company remained “in one piece” so that it could be sold. Therefore, it was a very useful experience for me, because I was terribly angry, there was such a strange story, there was such a girl, Tanya Zhelonkina. Which one of mail.ru came to us, who, as it were, took control, became the executive director, but she was, as they say, disloyal, that is, she kept looking at the door all the time, and all the time it seemed to her that she was about to "Throw". My task was to constantly calm her down, try to make sure that her struggle for power does not lead to the collapse of those projects that I started. Oleg Bunin was there, such a character, he is also quite noticeable now, who was the head of the technical service, I helped him grow in this position and together we took photos, videos, and everything else. I can’t say that we did everything perfectly, but it’s just that Rambler is tin, that is, even at that moment it was almost impossible to do anything, and at the same time there was a very crooked control system when a shareholder was sitting over everything who doesn’t want that they touched someone because it would look bad and it was unclear whether it would be possible to sell it or not, which was just waiting for a good moment to sell it, and it was clear that the situation was getting worse and worse. which I started. Oleg Bunin was there, such a character, he is also quite noticeable now, who was the head of the technical service, I helped him grow in this position and together we took photos, videos, and everything else. I can’t say that we did everything perfectly, but it’s just that Rambler is tin, that is, even at that moment it was almost impossible to do anything, and at the same time there was a very crooked control system when a shareholder was sitting over everything who doesn’t want that they touched someone because it would look bad and it was unclear whether it would be possible to sell it or not, which was just waiting for a good moment to sell it, and it was clear that the situation was getting worse and worse. which I started. Oleg Bunin was there, such a character, he is also quite noticeable now, who was the head of the technical service, I helped him grow in this position and together we took photos, videos, and everything else. I can’t say that we did everything perfectly, but it’s just that Rambler is tin, that is, even at that moment it was almost impossible to do anything, and at the same time there was a very crooked control system when a shareholder was sitting over everything who doesn’t want that they touched someone because it would look bad and it was unclear whether it would be possible to sell it or not, which was just waiting for a good moment to sell it, and it was clear that the situation was getting worse and worse. I helped him grow in this position and together we took photos, videos, and everything else. I can’t say that we did everything perfectly, but it’s just that Rambler is tin, that is, even at that moment it was almost impossible to do anything, and at the same time there was a very crooked control system when a shareholder was sitting over everything who doesn’t want that they touched someone because it would look bad and it was unclear whether it would be possible to sell it or not, which was just waiting for a good moment to sell it, and it was clear that the situation was getting worse and worse. I helped him grow in this position and together we took photos, videos, and everything else. I can’t say that we did everything perfectly, but it’s just that Rambler is tin, that is, even at that moment it was almost impossible to do anything, and at the same time there was a very crooked control system when a shareholder was sitting over everything who doesn’t want that they touched someone because it would look bad and it was unclear whether it would be possible to sell it or not, which was just waiting for a good moment to sell it, and it was clear that the situation was getting worse and worse.
[M. Spiridonov]: Listen to you, there was just some kind of nightmare, civil war and devastation.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, it was my life, it was my nightmare, people who know me, they know what it cost me.
[M. Spiridonov]: And tell me, did the situation somehow change there? They are still quite imagined, that is, Rambler is quite showing signs of life, albeit not looking perfect.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well ... which number is Rambler? Where is he? What it is? What does this company do? What do they specialize in?
[M. Spiridonov]: Well, Rambler is a kind of media portal with a search of its own, not the best, yes, of course, but the old audience is still holding on to it.
[AND. Zasursky]:Well, I don’t want to say anything bad about Rambler, you know, I think that Rambler, in general, is the highest essence, this is an incorporeal omniscient kind of being, powerful, which I have served for many years, and I do not want to betray him even now, but I can say that the affairs of this corporation, they developed from bad to worse, from worst to disaster. The catastrophe has come now, on the one hand it is a popular website, but on the other hand, there is nothing unique and even the Top 100 is now impossible to use after they redid it. You know, when management changes in a company all the time, all the time everyone hopes that management will pull the company to some level of its own. In fact, usually when it’s not specialists who come to the Internet, at least in Rambler it happened that they always lower the company to their level of understanding, that is, the less people cut into what is happening, they are always fresh, they are always in power, because shareholders take them as fresh, big, put their hopes in them. And Rambler is such a company that was destroyed by such a strange "symbiosis" when the huge role of keeping the company afloat was for technical specialists who were just there with a screwdriver so that they would not crumble on the go, respectively, they were not for some kind of rapid development, the main priority was that nothing fell there. On the other hand, there were constantly some new managers. At some point, I had complete power in the company, but not for long, because the main shareholder left for America for six months, he had some problems, and on a piece of paper with a pencil we painted some budget that I carried out, by PR, by advertising, by product. During this time I I managed to do what I could, and then the shareholder managing lost trust in me and there was a war in which I do not understand why I even participated. Because, if he were older, he could understand that people will “throw” me in the end.
Now, in principle, I have a very good attitude towards Turishcheva, I think that she is smart, but just now it’s a trough with broken eggs, and it’s hard to get a chicken or a cock out of it, or even get something out. But Rambler is my pain, this is because it was dying in my hands, for many years I tried to save it, as a result I went into conflict with the shareholders, they wanted to disperse the tape in general. That is, they had their own priorities, and I took some kind of independent position, and as a manager with an independent position I was left without my half-lemon. You still need to understand that when people hire you, they hire you to do a specific job. If you start to fight for the fate of the company, then what can you count on? Only that then you can tell on a radio show what kind of hero you are.
[M. Spiridonov]:It depends on the degree of awareness of those people and the tasks that they set for the project.
[AND. Zasursky]: The guys earned half a billion, as it were, in total.
[M. Spiridonov]: On the Rambler deal?
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, why? Of course. How much did it cost, this Rambler? Yes, it didn’t cost anything, they kind of made a stuffed animal out of it, and the stuffed animal looked beautiful, and they were able to sell it, because they had two customers whom they could tear among themselves at a price ...
[M. Spiridonov]: ... I see. The situation in the media market in general, online media, of course, how would you describe it, is it standing, moving?
[AND. Zasursky]:Well, ass, ass, in the sense that if people really seemed to know the economy, I think that there would be less news projects on the Internet, because the situation is very difficult for everyone, the situation on the intellectual market is very wrong, some advertising monopolies, some kind of Internet already has its own Video International, which was immediately blown away. I don’t like all this, I don’t think that this system works efficiently, I don’t think that it works fairly, I don’t think that it serves the interests of advertisers properly
[M. Spiridonov]: Whose interests does the advertising agency serve?
[AND. Zasursky]:Well, maybe advertising agencies basically. Washers of some kind of traffic. Well, that is, this is all a fool game, but I do not want to play a fool. I make deals with real people, then I feel ashamed in front of them, do you understand me?
[M. Spiridonov]: I understand, but how would it be then, can you draw a picture of the ideal state of the market?
[AND. Zasursky]: The ideal state of the market is when people get the exact audience they need. And any audience gets exactly the product that she needs. This is the ideal market condition. Well, I don’t know how to explain this to you
[M. Spiridonov]:No, I kind of understand, that is, you think that the bias now is that many projects are artificial, with artificial traffic, with an artificial audience and thus deceive advertisers
[I. Zasursky]:They are killing our entire business. These scumbags kill our whole business because it’s the price that keeps them up, you know? It seems to them that they play some cool game, that they invented a bicycle. In fact, they trade in porn traffic. This is reflected, because when you come to Nokia or somewhere there, you call your prices, they say: “These have so many, why do you have so many?” Because these people actually sell fishki.net, but in a different shell, you know? Therefore, I don’t think that this situation is eternal, because it’s impossible to deceive advertisers endlessly, probably, but for now, this advertising mafia is valid, it’s valid, but I think that Chaskor and I will get to them. You see, we are going to you. So we will tell the truth.
[M. Spiridonov]:That is, in this context it turns out, “Chaskor” will act as a nurse of the forest.
[AND. Zasursky]: Well, you saw the same rating, as it were, the top quality media. We are in the top ten. And in this top-quality media, which was headed by the tape, there were, of course, various publications, but there was no RIA Novosti, you know, what should they do there?
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