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Напишите эссе на тему: “The influence of the Internet on Russian society”.

Odnoklassniki

Russians Connect to Their Student Days

By Anna Arurtunyan and Nathalie Cooper The Moscow News

When a new Internet craze hits Russia, it hits with a vengeance. Welcome to Ondoklassniki.ru, a Russian-language spinoff of the U.S.-based social networking site Classmates.com. With 7 mil­lion registered users - some of whom are driving their bosses to ban the website in the office - Odnoklassniki.ru is all the rage. Why the popu­larity? The best explanation is that Russian children spend their first 10 years of school in the same class. This creates much stronger bonds between students than in the West, where pupils are often jumbled around from year to year. Now, there is a big demand to help people track down old friends.

"Russian children, between the ages of 6 and 16, usually attend school together, and they move together from primary school to secondary," says Albert Popkov, the site's Sakhalin-born creator. Thus, classmates often feel like a family, which was especial­ly relevant in Soviet times, when it was important to develop children's feeling of belonging. But sociologists point out that, unlike other vir­tual online networking tools, Ondoklassniki.ru is offering something else: the possibility to recreate Russia's tra­ditional "collective."

"For me it has been so important to find my old schoolmates again," says 24-year old Alexandra Kulikova. "We did after all spend so many years together in the same class and even though they are not the people I see or socialize with the most today, these are the people who are the closest to me."

Popkov created the site in 2000 while he was working in England as a software director for an online direc­tory enquiries company. "In 2001, Friends Reunited had just appeared in the UK," says Popkov. "It seemed like a great idea, like a live­lier alternative to directory inquiries. I thought this was just what Russia needed, but I couldn't see it happening in the near future... So I started working on my own 'Odnoklassniki' in 2005. According to Popkov, 2.5 million users log on to the site each day. "We are different from Friends Reunited insomuch as we have merged the two concepts of the classmates' reunion and the social networking forum," Popkov explains.

Ivan Zassoursky, media analyst and director of the Media Culture and Communications Laboratory at Mos­cow State University's journalism department, calls Odnoklassniki the most successful project of the year. "It's generated a huge wave of reunions and dinners," he says. "I think Moscow restaurant owners owe them."

Vkontakte.ru, another social net­working site, has only recently ap­peared in Russia and could become a threat to Odnoklassniki.ru. "Vkontakte was based on Facebook and they con­sequently have a younger student membership," Popkov said. "But our site is much more straightforward to use, so anyone from the age of 15 to 50 can register and learn how to use it quickly."

"I use both Vkontakte and Odno­klassniki," says Kulikova, "although for me Odnoklassniki is better. It is more for over-twenties, whereas Vkontakte has mostly student users." Kulikova says, however, that she would like Odnoklassniki to become more user-friendly. And this is precise­ly what Popkov proposes himself. "By the end of the year, there will be more society-creating facilities like in Facebook," says Popkov. "I think that everywhere people want to get in contact but the need to stay in contact is stronger in Russia because of the huge distances between people. In fact our site was found to be in the top 30 most popular sites in Germany, where there are many Russians."

Not everyone wants to get in touch with their past, however, and some feel they have seen enough of their class­mates to last them a lifetime: 55-year old Irina Kislitsina, an enterprising international real-estate employee from the Moscow suburban town of Zhukovsky says: "No, I would not be interested in 'Odnoklassniki', I see a lot of my old classmates around town, and quite honestly, I would rather spend time meeting new people."

One user who wished to remain anonymous created an account only to kill it after a few weeks. "I logged on after a classmate who now lives on the other side of the street from me talked me into it," he says. "I spent some time on the site but quit because I realized I have something more to say besides 'do you remember when..."'

Still, Popkov is particularly anxious to target the older generations who are often the most keen to rekindle old friendships, but also the least likely to know how to use the Internet. "We do get letters from 50 and 60 year-olds thanking us for having enabled them to find long lost friends. More and more of them are now getting regis­tered by their children to the point where children complain that their parents are always on the computer."

So what seems like a brave initiative in a country where the Internet is still in its initial stages is more than justified by current forecasts: "Internet access is currently 20 percent in Russia, and around 40 percent in Moscow. We are hoping that there will be a consider­able development in the regions in the next two-three years. Our timing would be just right." According to esti­mates by financial analysts at Citigroup Inc., one of the biggest U.S. banks, by the end of 2010 Internet penetration will have reached 77 percent in Moscow and 25 percent in the regions.

According to Olga Shevchenko, who teaches sociology at Williams College, the way Odnoklassniki oper­ates makes it even more unique for Russians, who are trying to rebuild their collective identity. "It's hard to say how popular it will be in the future," she says, "because right now we're in the middle of a boom. I think that sooner or later, however, many peo­ple will stop using it because as a tool to reach people in the physical world it would have already served its pur­pose. People can use it to get phone numbers and then meet up, but it's hard to say how it will be in the longer term."

Indeed, what sets it apart from other blogging sites, like Livejournal, which was a hit in Russia earlier in the decade, is its link to the concrete world. "Russian Livejournal was a virtual community," says Shevchenko. "It's potentially anonymous, like 19th cen­tury albums. It's an attempt to create an alternative world. But Odno­klassniki is an attempt to return to face-to-face communication."

According to Zassoursky, Odno­klassniki is an "embodiment of social services on the Internet."

"If Livejournal is a personal media system, then Odnoklassniki is a whole new architecture of social connec­tions."

Please answer the following questions:

1. Why has the website Ondoklassniki.ru become so popular?

2. Who is the site’s creator, and what inspired them to create this site?

3. When was the site created?

4. How many people use the site daily?

5. How does Ondoklassniki.ru differ from the other similar networking sites?

6. What are the advantages of using the website Ondoklassniki.ru? Why do some people think that it is important for them?

7. Are the two sites Ondoklassniki.ru and Vkontakte.ru the same?

8. Why don’t some people want to use the website? What reasons do they have?

9. What are the website creator’s targets for the future?

10. What uniquely Russian trait does Ondoklassniki.ruserve that other Internet sites do not cover?

11. What are the differences between some blogging sites, like Livejournal and Ondoklassniki.ru?

12. Have you ever registered on the websites Ondoklassniki.ru or Vkontakte.ru? What site is more interesting for you?

13. Do you think it is important for people to be able to easily access these sites?

14. If you were asked to design a social website, what would be your target audience and why?

Translate into Russian:

1. Сайт Ondoklassniki.ru– последний крик моды.

2. Самое лучшее объяснение состоит в том, что русские дети проводят свои первые десять лет учебы в одних и тех же классах.

3. Одноклассники часто чувствуют себя «семьей», что было особенно уместно в Советские времена, когда было важно развивать в детях чувство принадлежности к коллективу.

4. Сайт Vkontakte.ru только недавно появился в России и может стать угрозой для сайта Ondoklassniki.ru.

5. Наш сайт более простой для пользователя, и любой в возрасте от 15 до 50 лет может зарегистрироваться и быстро научиться, как им пользоваться.

6. Я думаю, что люди везде хотят оставаться «в контакте» со своими друзьями, но такая потребность сильнее проявляется в России, потому что люди живут на огромном расстоянии друг от друга.

7. В настоящее время доступ в интернет имеют 20 процентов населения России и около 40 процентов жителей Москвы.

8. Трудно сказать, насколько популярен будет сайт в будущем, потому сто сейчас мы находимся в середине подъема популярности сайта.

9. Я думаю, что рано или поздно многие люди перестанут пользоваться сайтом.

10. Сайт Ondoklassniki.ru – это попытка вернуться к реальному общению.

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