The state search system “Sputnik”, created for $ 20 million, is on the verge of closing.
Unfortunately, “Sputnik” did not take off
. Geektimes repeatedly wrote about the search system “Sputnik” , which a few years ago launched “Rostelecom”. This government search engine began operating in 2014, but in three years it never became popular. Despite the fact that Sputnik is focused on the Russian-speaking segment of the Internet, it does not occupy 1% of the search market. At that time, the transitions with Google and "Yandex" to other websites run into billions, the "Sputnik", this figure is only slightly more than 100 thousand. As a result, the project will either close or redesign, a decision on this matter is still pending write "Vedomosti" .
"Sputnik" can reorient to work with big data. With the words of the interlocutors of “Vedomosti”, this is one of the scenarios for the development of events, and there is still no exact understanding of how to reorient the system. On the other hand, this search service is unlikely to be closed - its creators will not decide on this, since “Sputnik” was positioned as a national scale resource.
Mikhail Oseevsky, the new president of Rostelecom, will be thinking about what to do with Sputnik. Now he is studying the general situation and will soon have to decide on a national search engine. The value of Sputnik, according to experts, is its own technologies, machine learning algorithms and the ability to work with Big Data. “It will be necessary to make corrections that correspond to reality,” said Andrei Polyakov, a representative of Rostelecom, commenting on the possibility of reprofiling the resource. “The company wants to increase efficiency and reduce costs. For this, a search is under way for a new economic and market model due to the changed situation in the market and in the economy. ”
Usually search engines earn on advertising, but Sputnik does not sell advertising. He makes money on the other: the creators of the search engine have contracts that are associated with public services and the calculation of big data. For example, in 2015, the revenue of the resource amounted to 136.6 million rubles, the loss - 150.5 million rubles.
Initially, KM Media was engaged in the development of Sputnik , which the operator himself later bought out. Currently, 74.99% of Sputnik is owned by several subsidiaries of the state-owned company Rostelecom: RTKomm.ru and Rostelecom International Limited.
The initial investment in the project was $ 20 million. Probably there were other investments, but Rostelecom did not disclose them. They decided to create a service so that it could become a point of access to the digital infrastructure of society and the state. ” To this end, several services have been added to the search engine's functionality to help users find official information, the state service, and the address of state institutions. Also, the developers were going to integrate Sputnik with payment systems and technologies. This was never done, but the search engine has its own browser.