How the three most popular entertainment portals in Russia were created and monetized

    According to the rating of LiveInternet, in the category “humor” the resources “Fish.net” and “I cried” occupy the 1st and 2nd places respectively. And the Pikabu portal leads in the entertainment category .

    Owners of such sites should find a balance between strict moderation and interesting content without restrictions. If site moderation is weak, then advertisers will be wary of such resources. They do not want dubious content adjoining to advertising. Some entertainment resources go the more difficult way, refusing to copy content from the outside. In such cases, they organize entire editorial offices. However, at the same time, sites are not registered as mass media and occupy an uncertain status.

    The correspondent of Meduza Ilya Zhegulev talked with the owners and representatives of Fishka.net, I cried and Pikabu and found out from them how the business on entertainment portals works and how much they can earn. In a conversation, the owner of Pikabu for the first time agreed to reveal his name.

    Picabu


    62.9 million visits per month (according to Similarweb)
    Maxim Khryashchev created Pikabu in 2009. He studied at the Tax Academy, and he already had one of his projects - a traffic exchange network. Then he came up with a larger idea - to create an entertainment site in Russia, something like Reddit .

    According to Khryashchev, at first very little money was needed. Only two years later, when the community began to grow rapidly, he hired several more developers. The main expenses he began to spend on maintaining servers. Now 12 people are involved in the project, including freelancers, and Khryashchev spends 12 million rubles a year on Pikabu; half goes to rent servers located in Germany, the rest goes to employees.

    According to Khryashchev, none of his employees are involved in writing or promoting content. His main task was to come up with a motivation system for users - so that they leave more likes and post more posts. He also developed a program that would itself track and raise posts of greatest interest. The more and faster the post gains rating, the higher it is located.

    There is no banner advertising on Pikabu, but you can place an advertising post on the site - for 30 thousand rubles a day. Among advertisers, Pikabu even had such serious companies as Beeline, but this does not mean that Khryashchev is a millionaire. In his own words, earning on advertising is no more than 1.2–1.3 million rubles a month.

    Khryashchev assures that all profits are invested in development, and he earns about the same as the rest of the employees — less than 100 thousand rubles a month. The entrepreneur says that the fact that the brand he created is very expensive warms his soul. According to Khryashchev, more than $ 2 million.

    "I cried"


    32.1 million visits per month (according to Similarweb)
    “I cried” does not even have a legal entity in Russia, and all advertising is sold through a friendly advertising agency. The representative of "I cried" in an interview with "Medusa" asked not to indicate his name.
    The site was opened in May 2004 for fun and socializing with friends. Then office spam was gaining popularity - employees of all Russian companies shared pictures and jokes among themselves at work.
    There are also few advertisements on "I cried". “Unfortunately, [advertisers] prefer social sites or superwhite sites like Adme.”

    “I cried” has its own ways to earn money. For example, if negative posts about the activities of certain companies appear on the site, they agree to remove them, but only for money. An employee of the site assures that his team itself is not involved in writing such posts: "We are people of a non-creative warehouse."

    "Chips.net"


    49.2 million visits per month (according to Similarweb)
    Like "I cried", the website "Fish.net" was created in 2004 - and also in May. This site was founded by 23-year-old programmer Alexander Rybak, and he, unlike the owners of other resources, was able to make money on it. In 2006, he sold Chips.net for $ 800,000 to RBC structures. The fisherman moved to Germany and became, along with Konstantin Shumov, a co-owner of Viboom.

    Now the project "Fish.net" is owned by Mikhail Gurevich. According to him, in 2006 the portal was a “promising garbage dump” in which there was everything - from politics to erotica. Over the next two years, the site, according to him, "managed to comb and remove eroticism." Gurevich says that at low costs, the portal had 200% profitability. But in 2008 there was a financial crisis - and the entire RBC holding was on the verge of bankruptcy.

    Chips.net was sold to outside investors, but in 2013 Gurevich bought it back - now as an independent investor. According to him, partly he invested himself, and partly the purchase was invested by 101StartUp, which he founded with partners, having left RBC. The company acquired 25% of Fish.net for $ 1.2 million.

    The ideal that Gurevich is striving for is to make Fish.net a Russian counterpart to BuzzFeed, one of the mainstream entertainment media with a monthly audience of more than 200 million people. Gurevich is building the Russian BuzzFeed with one exception: he promises that there will be no politics at Fishki.net until the situation in the country changes.

    Unlike “I cried” and Pikabu, the content for the main page of “Chips.net” is not made by users, but by the editorial staff.
    In addition, he says, when you create the content of the main page yourself, the portal becomes clear to advertisers who will understand that their banner will not be on the same page with contentious content. Gurevich plans to recoup his investment in the project by the end of this year.

    Many experts believe that entertainment sites should not place more than 3 types of advertising. Otherwise, the owners will lose a huge part of their visitors and, of course, earnings.

    Direct / ADVERT specialists are sure that monetizing such sites is easiest:
    Sites with comics, memes, viral videos or photos instantly find their audience. It remains only to make money on growing traffic. And here contextual advertising is not an assistant. Either you get ridiculous money (funnier than your content), or a ban from Adsense, but you may not accept it in Yandex.Direct.

    Some are convinced that entertainment topics do not bring a lot of income, but this is an excuse for the lazy. If you want to receive not only likes and comments, but also profit for your work, share your site with reliable partners and networks.

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