Today, almost everyone has their own page in a social network. In Russia and the CIS countries, Odnoklassniki gained quite a lot of popularity. The social network is currently owned by Mail.Ru Group. A project appeared back in March 2006. Now Odnoklassniki is the seventh most popular in Russia, and fifty-fifth all over the world.
Of course, many are familiar with the presented social network, but only a few know who founded it. The father of "Classmates" is Popkov Albert Mikhailovich. This article presents his biography and the history of the emergence of a social network.
Albert Popkov: biography
Many are familiar with the movie "The Matrix". It was this film that made it clear that each “matrix” has its own “architect”. Social networks also do not arise from the air. After all, someone is developing, promoting and attracting millions of users who spend in their favorite network around the clock. These sites include Odnoklassniki, whose audience in early 2013 exceeded two hundred million people. However, the article will focus more on the person who created such a huge network.
early years
Albert Popkov was born on September 26, 1972. The birthplace is the city of Yuzhno-Sakhalinsk.
At the age of three, Albert Popkov moved with his family to Moscow. He studied at school mediocre enough and left it after the eighth grade. Then he entered a technical school and at the same time began working as a programmer at NIIISchetMash. There, Albert worked out quite well. He developed software for computers, which in the Soviet Union were in almost every school for teaching children computer science.
90s
In the early 90s, Albert Popkov graduated. Later he began to try many professions and work in various places. It is known that he managed to work at a factory for the production of pencils and a seller. In the mid-90s, he began to seriously engage in web design. It was then that he created his first serious sites for several large companies.
Early 2000s: Odnoklassniki appears
In the late 90s, Albert Popkov received an offer to work for a large foreign company. The programmer agreed and went to England. By the way, outside of Russia he spent a long seven years. At first he worked in the camp of ordinary programmers and was engaged in the development of a search engine. Subsequently, Albert Popkov, the creator of Odnoklassniki, took up the post of director of the software development department. Here, fifty programmers fell under his leadership.
The idea of creating a social network came to Popkov in the last months of work in this company. He spent free time from the main work on the development of the site.
Return to Russia
The end of work for a foreign company came in 2006. The new project required Popkov more time and effort. Albert Mikhailovich believed that his new development would definitely bring income, and decided to completely switch to its improvement. Soon he left England and returned to Moscow. Already in the capital, he comes to the decision to create Odnoklassniki LLC.
At first, the project required huge financial costs, according to Albert Popkov. His condition is now quite large, and then often had to spend a lot of money out of his pocket on the development of a social network. The turning point in the life of Odnoklassniki is the appearance of an investor from Riga. It is at this moment that the accelerated growth of the site and its promotion begins. The staff of company programmers is expanding significantly.
2007 year
By 2007, the audience of Odnoklassniki is growing significantly. Albert Popkov, whose photo could already be seen in many magazines and on television, decides to transfer the site to a new "engine". Soon the resource was ready to receive even more visitors. In the same year, the project begins to receive a wide variety of awards. In a fairly short period of time, it was possible to double the site’s audience, namely, up to four million.
Social network revenues begin to amount to millions of dollars. "Classmates" were able to get into the top ten most popular resources in Russia. Only such giants as Google, Yandex, YouTube, YouTube, Mile and Vkontakte could overtake them.
2008 year
The creator of Odnoklassniki website Albert Popkov did not stop improving the project, and the growth in the number of users did not stop. In 2008, in each office, you could see people on whose monitor this social network was open. Even company directors said that they began to communicate with their employees through Odnoklassniki, as it is really simple and fast.
In the same period, Albert Popkov, a genius in web design, created a new project, Sravni.ru. Now he began to devote quite a lot of time to a new brainchild, but he did not forget about Odnoklassniki. Sravni.ru is a site that allows the user to compare a huge variety of products, enterprises and so on. The main income of the resource comes from advertising placed on the pages, as well as from companies that have received the status recommended in the resource. However, a scandal prevented normal work on website promotion.
I-CD Publishing Scandal
In the same year, the company, for which Albert Mikhailovich Popkov worked until 2006, filed a lawsuit in a UK court. The company and several branches believed that Popkov was obliged to give the social network to them, as well as the funds that he managed to earn on it. The reason was that Albert Mikhailovich did not fulfill the terms of the employment contract. After all, he began developing Odnoklassniki while still an employee of i-CD Publishing. And since the company is also engaged in the creation of online projects, this was the reason for filing a lawsuit against Popkov. Subsequently, the parties agreed on the world.
year 2009
July 2009 was the moment when Odnoklassniki took fifth place in terms of reaching an Internet audience. The increase in the number of users does not stop. Many companies are faced with the problem that their subordinates spent most of their time on this social network. In order to protect their employees from visiting Odnoklassniki, the directors instructed their system administrators to cut off access to the social network.
However, information soon appeared that the site was released in a version for mobile devices. Odnoklassniki regularly began to receive improvements and additions to ensure a more comfortable finding of the audience on the pages.
2010 year
By 2010, the audience of Odnoklassniki users has grown to forty-five million people. Most visitors were between the ages of twenty-five and forty-five. In the spring of the same year, the first games appeared in the project, which were in the testing phase.
The end of the summer was good news for many future users - the registration fee was canceled. Accordingly, the influx of people went with a vengeance. At the end of December, the audience got the opportunity to make video calls.
2011
The first innovation on the site occurred in April. The developers made an addition, thanks to which it became possible to divide their friends into groups. At the end of May, another novelty was introduced, which allowed the Odnoklassniki audience to log in using their login and password on other resources.
On the first day of June, users got the opportunity to listen and download music, thanks to the new section. The same summer, developers released an add-on that allows you to link three bank cards to your account.
year 2012
In April 2012, the number of registered users reached one hundred thirty-five million people. Later, developers added the ability to make purchases at Odnoklassniki with a zero account. Write-offs occurred when replenishing the balance.
In October, information was received that the resource would allow users to launch the radio. A day later, it was announced that the audience of Odnoklassniki could independently customize the style of their page.
year 2013
This year was a very good one for Odnoklassniki. On the first day, it was found that the number of users exceeded two hundred million people. Forty million users visited the social network daily.
In late February, the ability to create surveys in communities was added, and in early March, the Armenian language appeared on the site. In early April, there was a serious malfunction, as a result of which Odnoklassniki was unavailable during the day. I managed to completely cope with the problem in three days.
In late June, a version of the site for visually impaired people appeared. That same summer, Odnoklassniki was able to get into the top ten world social networks. Soon the site acquired English, it became possible to search for acquaintances by date of birth.
Subsequent years
The following years for Odnoklassniki pass as well as possible. The number of visitors to the resource is constantly growing. Developers regularly release innovations for the project, which bring a lot of new features.
Albert Mikhailovich Popkov himself continued to improve the first development, as well as Sravni.ru. Over the years of its existence, the project has evolved significantly and received a lot of positive feedback from users.