Time to read: 7 minutes(s)

We tell the story of the birth and oblivion of the "Yakut social network 'Zametki'." The project traveled this path quickly—in just four months. Although zmtk.ru is technically a WordPress-based collective blog dating back to the 1990s and 2000s, its creators tried to market it as an import-substitute for social networks blocked in Russia.

"Notes" were created by the main Yakut state media holding "Sakhamedia”, in the media center of which he was submitted The website was launched on November 22, 2022. The project was led by Andrey Nikiforov, who also serves as the editor-in-chief of YSIA (Yakut Sakha Information Agency), the state news agency of Yakutia.

The essence of the entire hour-long presentation can be summarized in one thought: “It’s good that we in Yakutia have created our own sovereign social network as an alternative to the banned American Facebook and Instagram.”

On the benefits of staying outside the global information space during a presentation говорил Sakhamedia CEO Viktor Kolesov: "Yakutia has always been built to communicate and live within its own circle of people. Not everyone here is looking to communicate with Australia; we're interested in our own people. In this regard, 'Zametki' will meet our needs."

On the harm of American social media at a presentation говорил and Yakutia's Minister of Innovation and Digital Development, Anatoly Semenov: "Banned social networks have long since lost their interest. I missed my own feed with cozy pastimes, where everyone is familiar. A cozy, homey social network where you could check recipes and see what everyone is doing. Follow someone and read their thoughts. That's what's missing. Once users appear on Notes, we'll be able to offer something, just like in any market."

But there are still difficulties with users and the market. People who tried to create something for "Notes" didn't hide their disappointment with the audience figures. "Did my post really get more than 10 views and two comments? By this site's standards, it's a real sensation," писал One of the site's authors a month after its launch. This author has his own blog. abandoned Half a year ago. 

Currently, the zmtk.ru main page publishes an average of less than ten posts per day. The number of views per post is also similar—no more than ten, on average.

Thanks to the official Telegram channel, it's possible to pinpoint the exact moment when the project's creators finally stopped working on it. last publication in the channel - February 14, 2023. The project was supported for only four months. Strictly speaking, the accountРедакция" has been updated a couple of times since then, but those were posts about a children's drawing contest and a raffle for a slot in the Yakutsk Half Marathon. Since February, there has been no word on the project's development.

One of the propaganda goals of the Notes, for which they were clearly intended, was to replace the most popular Yakut opposition internet portal Ykt.ru, закрытый almost immediately after the events of February 24, 2022. What is characteristic is that the "Notes" are almost completely copied Ykt.ru project design Sample 2015 of the year.

Right before Ykt.ru shut down, UGC content was there generated A lot of people. Apparently, none of these people switched to "Notes." The ykt.ru domain is currently down (the site is essentially down). sets almost half a million people monthly. On "Notes" — about 3 thousand. But there's a catch: zmtk.ru's "traffic sources"," "social media traffic," and "search traffic." It seems like no one is alive here.

Even its director, Andrey Nikiforov, isn't using the project for the last time. updated He abandoned his blog six days after the project's launch and never returned to it. "We will monetize Notes. But later, when we reach a critical mass of users. Right now, the guys are studying the experience of other platforms and figuring out a mechanism. But right now, my team and I want to make Notes a place where, first and foremost, micro and small businesses feel comfortable. It should be easy to talk about yourself and your services, promote your page, and make it easy for potential clients to find what they're looking for," he wrote. All these plans remained just that—plans. 

At the Digital Diamond forum at the end of 2022, Andrey Nikiforov говорил "Can a social network be called polished and censored when, from the very beginning, literally from the very start, posts appeared in support of a young man accused of discrediting the Russian Armed Forces? We have posts that directly troll the Minister of Innovation of Yakutia. If they don't restrict their audience, but simply direct them from time to time to prevent complete lawlessness, then I think the product will be quite viable." Apparently, the only symbol cited as a symbol of freedom of speech is news about activist Aikhal Ammosov.

To create this project, Sakhamedia journalists went to Moscow to "adopt best practices" in state media. This entire educational undertaking even had a marketing gimmick—the Yakut Ministry of Innovation dubbed the propaganda training process "Media Accelerator B8." Sakhamedia spent a total of $100,000 on the trips and website creation. spent about 3,5 million rubles.

"We were the first in the Far East to come up with the idea of ​​creating a Media Accelerator. We don't just study, we learn on the job, and we immediately apply the knowledge we gain in practice. This is a unique program, absolutely exclusive. Perhaps we'll find the closest approximation of a new type of mass media, a prototype that we'll take as the 'gold standard,' and strive to achieve it," говорил Anatoly Semenov, head of the Yakutia Ministry of Innovation, said: "The Notes project is clearly still far from the gold standard." 

The project's website crashed right on the day of its launch. A message appeared on the official Telegram channel message "We're solving the problem. Information from the hosting provider: DDoS attacks from abroad. Access will be blocked within 30 minutes, leaving it only for the Russian Federation. The attacks specifically targeted Zametki; other sites on this hosting are still active." Apparently, they were too shy to use the words "Ukrainian saboteurs." 

"SpeaksNeMoscow" anonymously spoke with a Yakut IT specialist who claims to be the "Foreign Attacker." "I decided to have a laugh and test if they had brute-force protection. I started brute-forcing the admin login, and within five minutes the site was down." 

In January 2023, project manager Andrey Nikiforov говорил "The technical part is not yet complete. The developers are still working on the mobile app and should most likely deliver it this month. For certain reasons, this wasn't possible in December." At the time of writing, the "Notes" mobile app did not exist.

One of the first messages on the project's official Telegram channel included the following words: "Now that the main social networks are trying to erase any boundaries between users, causing complete strangers to constantly appear in recommendations, and your feed is full of posts you didn't ask for, Notes is moving in a different direction." Regardless of the project's direction, it's clearly crucial to pull audiences away from banned social networks. failedThe arguments of Yakut officials about the benefits of cultural and informational isolation turned out to be seriously out of touch with reality.

"Notes" is far from the first pompous project in Yakutia that is not what it pretends to be. In September 2014, is running The "Unified Youth Portal," which cost over 1 million rubles from the republic's budget, was created. The project was short-lived and closed in August 2015. stopped updatingIts content was largely copy-pasted from regional and federal news agencies. Characteristically, the project's creator (then Chairman of the Youth Parliament of Yakutia), Nikolai Fomin, attempted to resolve the issue of a critical publication about the portal on one of the news sites in a unique way. He stormed the editorial office and started a fight with journalists.

Another epic example is the One Click Yakutsk website, which was used by the regional authorities as purse to pay for the placement of propaganda materials. It was also used to pay for pro-government events of varying degrees of exoticism—for example, Vainer festival from Kazakhstan. Nominally, it was a service for handling complaints from regional residents and "resolving them in one click," but this very functionality on the website didn't really work. Around 30 million rubles were spent on the service annually. But today, it's lost its former glory. there was no trace left.