Friends for $1.47 billion: how the social network VKontakte passed into the hands of Usmanov

Who originally owned the social network?

Initially, the founder of the social network was Pavel Durov, who received his share of fame and money as the creator of the largest social network in Russia and the CIS countries. But if we consider the issue from a legal point of view, Pavel was not the full owner of Vkontakte LLC.

The project was financed by father and son Vyacheslav Mirilashvili and Mikhail Mirilashvili. These are entrepreneurs. The main owner of Vkontakte LLC was his son, Vyacheslav Mirilashvili. He can also be called the founder of the company. Pavel Durov made an intellectual contribution, and the son of a billionaire made a monetary contribution.

Initially, the shares of Vkontakte LLC were distributed as follows (at the beginning of 2007):

• 60% - Vyacheslav Mirilashvili;
• 20% - Pavel Durov - creator of the social network;
• 10% - Mikhail Mirilashvili (billionaire, father of Vyacheslav Mirilashvili);
• 10% - Lev Leviev is another millionaire investor who also stood at the origins of the company and poured his funds into it.

VKontakte LLC was registered on February 19, 2007, that is, the people indicated above are the first owners and founders of the organization:

Many believe that the owner of VKontakte now and previously is Pavel Durov. In fact, he is simply the creator, but the promotion of the service was financed by the money of investors who were co-owners. Pavel initially owned only 20%. Now he has no share in Vkontakte LLC at all.

Social network “VKontakte”: history of development

05 — Jul — 2013 No comments

Surf

Today, not a single site or portal on the Runet can bypass or at least come close to the indicators of the rapid development of the social network VKontakte. In a matter of months, the VKontakte network managed to win the hearts of millions and enter the TOP 50 most popular sites in the world. If you are interested in the history of development and the main idea of ​​VKontakte, then this article is just for you.

The history of the development of the social network VKontakte began in 2007 with unknown programmers Pavel Durov and Oleg Andreev. A few words about the creators. Pavel Durov graduated from the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University. Since childhood, I have been interested in and studied programming in detail. Pavel Durov's first successful project was the student Internet portal durov.com. On this site, anyone could find answers to exam questions in the humanities. Later, it was on this site that Pavel Durov posted the first link to the VKontakte network. The second quite important Internet project was the student forum of St. Petersburg University spbgu.ru.

The main idea that Pavel Durov pursued when creating the social network “VKontakte” was to maintain contacts with his classmates and friends after graduating from university. It is the spbgu.ru forum. was supposed to be that place. Pavel Durov wanted that, in addition to “nicknames” and “avatars,” the user could indicate his data, places of study, in general, create his own world and show it to everyone.

The history of the development of the social network “VKontakte” gained great momentum after Pavel Durov’s school friend, Vyacheslav Mirilashvili, arrived from the United States in 2006. He studied at Tuffts University and was well aware of the social networking site Facebook. To launch a similar project in Russia, a lot of money and connections were needed. Vyacheslav Mirilashvili possessed precisely these qualities. It would be more accurate to say that his father Mikhail Mirilashvili had both money and connections. In the 90s, Mikhail Mirilashvili, nicknamed Misha Kutaissky or “MMM,” was one of the most authoritative representatives of the St. Petersburg mafia. Together with their brother Konstantin Mirilashvili, they owned a large half of all city gambling establishments and had a share in the heavy and oil industries. But in 2003, the authority Misha Kutaisky was found guilty of murdering two people who kidnapped his father. He served 3 years out of eight when his son Vyacheslav Mirilashvili begins to create the social network VKontakte with Pavel Durov. By the way, during his stay in prison, Mikhail Mirilashvili’s business, which includes the Konti holding, developed successfully. According to Forbes, in 2011, Mikhail Miralashvili’s fortune was $700 million and ranked 133rd.

On October 1, 2006, when VKontekte LLC was officially registered, 60% of the shares belonged to Vyacheslav Mirilashvili. 20% went to Pavel Durov, 10% goes to the famous entrepreneur Lev Leviev, whose fortune in 2008 amounted to $5 billion, and the remaining 10% goes to Vyacheslav’s grandfather, Mikhail Mirilashvili.

At first the site was closed. Only students with an existing invitation could register on the VKontakte social network and create their own personal page. After a month and a half, logging into the system became free. To attract users, the network management announced a competition to invite friends. The most active ones received an iPod nano, iPod video, iPod Shuffle as a gift.

History of the name "VKontakte"

The history of the name “VKontakte” began with the name student.ru. After thinking a little, Pavel Durov decided that such a name did not reflect the concept of the project, to give all students the opportunity to stay in contact with their friends after graduating from university. Having heard the phrase on the radio: “In full contact with information,” Pavel Durov decided that the new Russian social network should be called “VKontakte.”

In November 2007, the social network had three million users. In mid-2010, Pavel Durov reported that the number of registrations on the network had reached 100 million. Today, the daily audience of VKontakte is 47 million people.

In mid-2008, the first commercial advertising appeared on the VKontakte social network.

Net profit

VKontakte in 2012 amounted to $1.01 million. At the beginning of June 2013, the founder of the network, Pavel Durov, received a power of attorney from the Mail.Ru Group company for the right to vote with their block of shares, which amounts to 40%. Pavel himself owns 12% of the shares. Such actions were a response to the investment fund United Capital Partners, which in the spring of 2013 acquired a 48% stake from the Mirilashvili family and Lev Leviev.

Prospects.

At the moment, 135 million accounts have already been registered on the VKntakte social network. That is, the Russian-speaking audience is already three-quarters exhausted. Now the company's development prospects are aimed at the global market, where it is ready to fight its main competitor Facebook

VKontakte office.

The social network team works in the Singer House office, which is located in the very center of St. Petersburg, opposite the Kazan Cathedral. It is located in an ancient building from the early 20th century, once owned by.

Who owns VKontakte now?

The history of the change of owners was not made public, but changes in the structure of Vkontakte LLC still occurred. In 2010, Mail.ru Group was preparing to sell its own shares, for which it posted information about itself. Then it turned out that the company owns 24.99% of VKontakte. Moreover, already in the next 2011, the Mail.ru Group’s share in the LLC increased significantly, but the share of the founders became lower.

Structure of VKontakte LLC for 2011:

• 39.99% - Mail.ru Group;
• 40% father and son Mirilashvili, that is, the family at that time was still the main owner with the largest share;
• 12% - Pavel Durov;
• 8% - Lev Leviev.

In 2013, the ownership structure underwent major changes. The Mirilashvili family and Lev Leviev decided to leave the structure by selling their parts of VKontakte LLC to the United Capital Partners fund. As a result, the fund became the main owner

Owner structure of VKontakte LLC for 2013:

• 48% - United Capital Partners;
• 39.99% - Mail.ru Group;
• 12% - Pavel Durov.

In 2014, Pavel Durov dropped out of the list of owners of Vkontakte LLC. He sold his share to Igor Tavrin, the owner of the Megafon company.

After the sale of his share by Pavel Durov, the company underwent the following structural changes. Mail.ru Group, which already had 39.99% of the company, bought out his 12% stake from Igor Taranov. As a result, Mail became the main owner of Vkontakte LLC with a share of 52%. United Capital Partners had another 48%.

The key moment occurred in September of the same 2014. Mail.ru Group bought a stake in Vkontakte LLC from United Capital Partners. As a result, Mile became 100% owner of the VKontakte social network.

If we consider who currently owns VKontakte, then since 2014 the constant 100% owner is Mail.ru Group.

VKontakte property transfers

The current state of the social network, based on TNS data, shows that VK has become the largest project of similar market products in the entire history of the Russian Internet. Since the inception of the project (January 19, 2007), the total financial income for 2012 amounted to slightly less than 5 billion rubles.

Mirilashvili and Leviev took care of additional profits. The Selectel data center was created in order to be able to store data and process it independently, without depending on other suppliers. By 2011, it became clear that the social network had turned into a system that was completely independent and capable of working offline. In 2012, the question of who owns VKontakte caused absolutely no controversy. What is important, having strengthened their position in the global market (11% of the total figure), its owners joined in investing in other people's business projects.

By early 2014, it became clear that change was coming. The portfolio, which was replenished with about 30 projects, allowed the founders of VK to take part in the sponsorship of individual business plans. To invest in market products and funds complementing them, Mirilashvili and Leviev used their own savings.

In 2007, a list of owners of the increasingly popular VKontakte was provided by the Vedomosti newspaper with reference to the unified state register of legal entities. It included Vyacheslav Mirilashvili, who owned 60% of the social network, Mikhail Mirilashvili, who owned 10%, the creator of VKontakte, Pavel Durov, who owned 20%, and Lev Leviev, who owned 10%.

In 2010, in the fall, during preparations for the first public offering of shares of Mail.ru Group, which at that time had spun off from Digital Sky Technologies, it turned out that it was the owner of 24.99% of the social network. Moreover, Mail.ru acquired another 7.5% of VKontakte.

In August 2011, the American financial holding JPMorgan reported that 39.99% of VKontakte belonged to Mail.ru Group, Mirilashvili owned 40 percent, Pavel Durov owned 12%, and Lev Leviev 8%.

In April 2013, a consortium of investors led by UCP, managed by Ilya Shcherbovich, acquired 40% of VKontakte from the Mirilashvili family, as well as 8% from Lev Leviev. Sources close to the parties to the deal report that negotiations began in January, and the sale agreement was signed on April 2. As a result, it turned out that the social network was owned by:

• Mail.ru Group in the amount of 39.99%,
• United Capital Partners fund 48%,
• its creator Pavel Durov 12%.

Then, on January 24, 2014, Durov’s close friend and CEO Ivan Tavrin acquired his part of VKontakte from Pavel. And on March 18, 2014, he, in turn, resold it to Mail.Ru Group. After some time, Pavel Durov announced that he was leaving VKontakte, arguing his decision by limiting his freedom of action.

However, the flared up corporate conflicts between Mail.Ru Group and the UCP Foundation had a negative impact on the further development of the social network. Then, on September 4, 2014, it became known that Mail.ru was negotiating with United Capital Partners to purchase its stake in VKontakte. As a result, on September 16, 2014, Mail.Ru Group acquired a share of the UCP fund, becoming the sole owner of the social network.

How VK shares were sold

Beginning in April 2013, a number of events occurred that changed the initial composition of the founders of the VK network. There was no doubt as to who owned the largest share of VKontakte shares; at that time Mail.ru Group owned 39.9% (an increase of slightly more than 7%), the Mirilashvili family 40%, Pavel Durov 12% and, accordingly, Levi 8%.

In May 2013, the Mirilashvili family decided to sell their share to Mr. Shcherbakov, head of the United Capital Partners fund. The process of transferring VC shares caused a lot of speculation regarding the fairness and legality of the transaction. Foreseeing in advance the fact that the network would seriously interest the country's intelligence services in its activities, Mirilashvili understood that from their side the pressure on him, as the founder, would increase.

At that time, United Capital Partners had serious influence on the work of large Russian concerns, such as Transneft and Rosneft. Considering Mr. Shcherbakov’s long-standing affiliation with the Russian intelligence services, Mirilashvili offered to buy out his share to the United Capital Partners fund at the right time.

Almost the next year, in 2014, Pavel Durov also sold his share. The remaining part of VK shares (48%) was acquired by Mail.ru Group in early autumn 2014 for 1.47 billion. The network became the full owner of VK and, in fact, the only market product that is completely opposed to Mail.ru and Megafon. Media resources have always been a tasty morsel for big businessmen. This actually explains the reason for the interest in the product as a way to manage business in the shadow and open markets of the Russian Federation.

About Mail.ru Group

Mail.ru Group is a technology corporation that owns social networks, services and projects. Activities are mainly carried out with projects related to the Internet. And this is far from just the VK social network and email service.

Mail.ru Group belongs to:

• social networks VKontakte, Odnoklassniki, Moi Mir;
• search engine and products Mail.ru;
• electronic payment system Qiwi;
• food delivery aggregator Delivery Club;
• educational portal Skillbox;
• service for purchasing goods from China Pandao;
• taxi aggregator Citymobil;
• online dating service Mamba.ru, etc.

In total, Mail.ru Group owns about 30 companies and services in various areas of activity.

We have already figured out that Vkontakte is 100% owned by Mail.ru Group. But who owns Mile himself? In fact, these people and companies are the owners of the social network.

As of 2021, the main shareholder of Mail.ru Group is Naspers - 27.6%. This is a holding from South America, it owns the largest stake in Mile. This is also MF-Technology, which is 36% owned by Sberbank. Plus, Megafon is among the main owners.

How to see what the VKontakte page used to look like through Google search?

In this article we will look at ways to view old copies of pages, but here it should be noted that in this way you can only view the profiles of those people who were not hidden by privacy settings that close the page from search engines. At the same time, here you can even see those pages that were previously deleted.

First, we will talk about how to view an old version of a page using the popular Google search engine, which can save various pages on the Internet in their earlier versions. But here you need to understand that all these saved pages remain in the search engine’s memory for a limited period of time, that is, the old version is deleted after it is scanned again.

In the search bar, you need to enter a query with the person’s name “VKontakte”, as well as with the special addition site:vk.com, so that Google shows results only within this social network. In the search results, you then need to find the required page and next to it click on the button with a green triangle to open a menu with additional functions. Next, in the list that appears, you need to select the “Saved copy” item.

After this, the user will be taken to the page of the person he is looking for, and to the version that was scanned by the Google search engine the previous time. Depending on how old the version is eventually opened, even the interface of the VKontakte social network may change.

It is also worth noting that even if the user has already logged in to this social network, he will see this page from a person who is not registered on VKontakte, that is, as an anonymous visitor, because this is how Google robots see profiles on this site. If the user decides to go to his profile to view in more detail the materials posted on the saved version of the found page, he will simply be taken to the original current version of VKontakte. This means that in this way you can only view the basic information that was posted directly on the person’s page itself, and all other additional materials simply cannot be opened. That is why it will not be possible here, for example, to view the list of subscribers or all photographs of a person. It is also worth noting that looking at old saved versions of the profiles of famous and popular people on this social network, in fact, does not make any sense, because too many people visit these pages, and therefore they are scanned much more often by search engines.

History of VK creation

This is now VKontakte - a social network in which almost every Russian has an account. Many citizens of the Russian Federation and other countries go to the social network every day, look for information, and communicate. But this was not the case right away.

The domain vkontakte.ru was registered on October 1, 2006, and already at the beginning of 2007, Vkontakte LLC appeared with its owners in the form of investors. It was in 2006 that the creator of the social network, Pavel Durov, graduated with honors from the Faculty of Philology of St. Petersburg State University, but never took the diploma.

In the process of studying, and he studied well, constantly received various awards, increased scholarships, Pavel began to develop various Internet projects. All of them were connected with the life of the university, like the social network Vkontakte.

According to Pavel Durov, VKontakte was a society of students, only they could register and communicate in the system. But a month after the start of the project, free registration in the service was opened for everyone.

• 2007 The service is rapidly gaining momentum, the number of registered users reaches 3 million by the end of the year;
• 2008 Work begins on the internationalization of the resource. Number of users by mid-year - 10 million;
• year 2009. VKontakte has surpassed its main competitor, Odnoklassniki, in the number of visits;
• 2010 The 100 millionth user was registered in November. Part of Vkontakte LLC is acquired by Mail.ru;
• year 2013. Tom Cruise has registered on the social network VKontakte;
• year 2014. Pavel Durov sells his share and ceases to be the owner of Vkontakte. In the same year, Mail.ru became 100% owner of VK.

Since 2014, the social network has been actively developing and introducing new services. Every month the platform attracts 97 million active users, 10 billion messages pass through the system every day.

[edit] History

Pavel Durov on his 26th birthday, October 10, 2010
The site was created in 2006 by Pavel Durov and his brother Nikolai Durov, who soon joined, who became technical director. In fact, it is the Russian analogue of the Facebook site. Initially, only students and graduates of Russian universities could register on it, but soon registration restrictions were lifted.

Since 2007, the popularity of the site began to grow rapidly. By November 2007, the number of site users reached more than 3 million. At the same time, it was stated that VKontakte was ahead of another Russian social network, Odnoklassniki, in terms of traffic.

In April 2008, it was announced that the social network was used by more than 10 million users. At the same time, work began on the internationalization of the resource; versions of the site were launched in many foreign languages, including Ukrainian.

On September 5, 2009, the vk.com domain was purchased in order to promote the site on the international market.

In February 2010, the number of VKontakte users reached 60 million. In the same year, a payment system was launched, which was closed a year later.

Pavel Durov

Since 2021, Pavel Durov has been included in the Forbes list of the richest businessmen in Russia. In 2014, when he sold his share in Vkontakte LLC, he left Russia, declaring that he had no plans to return here. Since 2021, Pavel has been living in Dubai, where the headquarters of his Telegram service is located.

Pavel Durov comes from an intelligent family, his parents are university teachers. His brother was the company’s technical director from the founding of the social network until 2013.

First steps towards success

A key moment in the entrepreneur’s biography was approaching - the emergence of VKontakte. You already know who created this social network. However, few people know that even before its appearance, while studying at the university, Pavel worked on several predecessor projects. One of them is the site durov.com, which did not have any commercial benefit, but helped students who studied and lived in different parts of the northern capital to exchange opinions and ideas online.

However, soon Pavel let the work of durov.com take its course and turned his attention to a new project - the university forum spbgu.ru, starting to promote it. First of all, Durov created a portal to the faculties' platforms, then he began to initiate verbal battles, registered under different nicknames and argued with himself, and in real life he organized beauty and design contests. Meanwhile, the forum’s attendance reached 3,000 people per day, and the resource began to be enriched with new social functions. Users were able to blog, raise or lower each other's ratings. Pavel was especially careful about monetization, not allowing banners not related to education to appear on the site.

By the end of his studies, Durov was firmly convinced that he needed to do his own projects, and not translate from English, as was indicated in the diploma. By the way, he never took the diploma himself, so as not to have to deal with the bureaucracy once again.

FAQ

Who ultimately owns VKontakte today?

Since 2014, the social network is 100% owned by Mail.ru Group, which also owns the social networks Odnoklassniki and Moi Mir.

Who currently holds the post of General Director of VKontakte?

This post has been occupied by Marina Krasnova since March 30, 2021; she joined Mile Group in 2021. Previously, the post of General Director was held by Andrey Rogozov, who remained in the company, simply transferred to another position - headed the strategic council.

What does Pavel Durov have to do with VKontakte now?

He is only the creator of the social network; legally, since 2014, he has nothing to do with the site. He sold his share to the owner of Megafon, who in turn resold it to Mile Group.

Who was originally the main owner of VKontakte?

The first owners were Pavel Durov and investors who invested money in the development of the social network. The key investor was Vyacheslav Mirilashvili, who owned 60% of the company. Pavel Durov owned 20%.

Where is the main office of VKontakte LLC?

The headquarters of the organization is located in St. Petersburg, and there is also an office in Moscow. Before the restrictions were introduced, there was also an office in Kyiv.

Sources:

1. Wikipedia: VKontakte.
2. Wikipedia: Pavel Durov.
3. Wikipedia: Mail.ru Group.

about the author

Irina Rusanova - higher education at the International East European University in the direction of "Banking". Graduated with honors from the Russian Economic Institute named after G.V. Plekhanov with a major in Finance and Credit. Ten years of experience in leading Russian banks: Alfa-Bank, Renaissance Credit, Home Credit Bank, Delta Credit, ATB, Svyaznoy (closed). He is an analyst and expert of the Brobank service on banking and financial stability. [email protected]

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VKontakte, which we lost. How we saw off the old social network design and what we remember about it

You go into your favorite social network like this in the morning, rub your eyes and immediately don’t believe them. You start frantically refreshing the page, but it doesn’t help, you rush to call your friends, wondering how things are going with them, you go to FB, check the correctness of the addresses, but in the end you realize that you saw everything correctly, but what you saw is not at all joyful. Did you recognize yourself today? If you haven’t already, I described your future feelings when logging into VKontakte, which has acquired a new design.

In fact, this design was introduced to some users back in April of this year, and I was one of them, so people on this list are mostly used to the new one. Another thing is the remaining part of the users, who did not even suspect about the impending changes.

What was VKontakte like before?

Today's riot of the crowd can be compared with the indignation of 6 years ago, when another large-scale change to the interface happened - Pasha and his team removed the good old “wall”. And with another later change - the ban on hiding your page and all your friends from people not on your list. I suspect that some of you did not live in those primitive times, so to complete the picture, here are VK screenshots from the “how it was” category:

2007

old wall

year 2014

2021

At the very beginning, VK did not yet have auto-update (while waiting for a response to a message, you had to constantly refresh the page manually); there were no stickers; documents; gifts; subscribers; applications; advertising; it was impossible to save your statuses (and in general they were deleted automatically after a couple of days) and avatars; You could only upload photos one at a time; and it was impossible to attach photographs, music and videos to the wall at all; By the way, there was almost no music (at the same time, no one had banned it yet); there was no “online” status; it was impossible to understand whether your message was read; there was no link to a phone number and two-factor authentication; there were no mobile applications; there were no official pages or celebrities; and there weren’t even normal communities or public pages, only stupid groups with one-sided interests. Yes, and there was a lot of things that didn’t happen yet.

But there were anonymous opinions; nicknames; ratings; user counter; the page then politely reminded that “It’s you”; people painted graffiti on each other all the time; created notes; were in a huge number of groups like “Born in 1988”; hide all your friends with one button in the settings; tagged each other in photos, pictures and videos (even if these people were not present in them); fought verbal battles on their walls, while addressing their opponents (there was a convenient “Tete-a-Tete” button for this); watched porn, new films and entire series directly on social networks; the feed of personal messages was maintained from top to bottom; next to the “My Messages” tab the number of messages was displayed, not dialogues; there was much less spam and bots; at that time Pasha Durov was still in charge of the network; and the site itself was called Vkontakte (Cyrillic) and was located on the domain vkontakte.ru. And other pleasant, forgotten little things. Like the rusty “Kopeyka” in the yard of your childhood.

We communicated with each other more kindly then, because the phrase “I’ll find you by IP” still had weight. In those days, VK was the lot of schoolchildren, OK was the lot of the older generation, and FB was the lot of the enlightened elite. Today, the audiences are quite mixed and there is no longer a clear classification, except that OK - they continue to stand out, although their users have long since moved to both FB and VK and mixed with the crowd.

VKontakte was loved for its zealous Durov, for its pirated music, for its pirated videos and for its convenience, and foreigners loved VK for its large portfolio of Slavic girls, which they could choose from a list.

Like it or not?

Today the VK world is divided into two opposing camps, some are shouting that the new design is a complete mess, others are littering the feed with their “what the hell are you doing with your dissatisfaction, great design.” It was the same during the aforementioned “wall” and during the “I want to hide ALL my friends” times. People will probably grumble and calm down. Somehow today I don’t hear any indignation towards the microblog or open pages. Visual design is a matter of habit, but how functional it is is another matter, because beauty in such a matter must give way to convenience. So far, I’m just seeing wild lags on the site (most likely this is due to technical difficulties at first, but still), I’m observing that many elements have become irrationally positioned, and I’m also noticing that the developers have chosen a strange scale for all elements. Here's what's happening on social media news right now:

Among such “butthurts” there are rare constructive and neutral reviews:

And even more rare positive ones:

Those especially interested even created a petition on Change.org a couple of months before today’s mass transition to the new design. However, its latest update reads:

Apparently, breaking Mail.ru is not as easy as Yandex. The story with the Kinopoisk update was decided in the direction of the dissatisfied crowd, but with Vkontakte everything is completely different. There will be no fussing with capricious users who don’t want to change anything. Therefore, as one of the above users wrote: “If you don’t like something, the easiest way is to accept it.”

UPD: Pavel Durov spoke about the new design.

It turned out that not only many users are unhappy with the changes, but also the founder of this social network. And yes, VK is similar to FB, and the design, judging by the words of a professional, is truly a rare “G”.

“7 complaints about the new design of the VKontakte web version:

1. The main section of the site – News – has become narrower. It’s ironic that the need for the redesign was justified by the desire to use the screen more efficiently. In fact, if you compare the width of posts in the old and new versions, the news only narrowed by 28px.

2. News - like all other sections - became lower by 42px. Due to the fixed header, the vertical space of the site has become smaller, you need to scroll more. This is a major change for the worse: vertical scrolling is what is lacking on most displays.

3. When viewing the main section of the site – News – the focus on the content is lost. The new version introduced visual clutter in the form of a rarely used fixed right column. Given the fixed header and narrow width, viewing news became doubly cluttered.

4. When viewing photos, the focus on the picture itself is lost. The photos are shifted to the left, and the bright spot of the white comment column that appears on the right draws attention to itself. This solution was copied from Facebook, which at one time introduced a right column to accommodate additional advertising blocks.

5. A static left column when scrolling through old posts on personal pages not only does not provide the necessary information, but also narrows the horizontal space for viewing posts compared to the old version. A similar situation occurs when viewing posts in groups and public pages.

6. Replacing the white background color with gray not only reduced the feeling of cleanliness and minimalism, but also overall made the site sadder and gloomier. The gray icons that appear on the gray menu on the left on all pages are redundant and represent visual garbage.

7. The old VKontakte logo, due to its composition, fit better into the horizontal header than the new VK logo. I drew both logos quite a long time ago (the first about 10 years ago, the second about 5), but in the Russian version I did not replace the old logo with the international one precisely because of this – quite obvious – circumstance.

Bottom line: the old design of VKontakte, which had not changed for several years, certainly needed a number of improvements and aesthetic rethinking within the framework of new styles. However, the redesign not only does not correspond to the standards of 15-16 (such as Material), but also reduces the usability of the resource.

All of the listed elements of the new design were blindly copied from Facebook in 2012. During these years, Facebook was forced to increase profitability as part of its IPO, so in the design it sacrificed the interests of users for the sake of adding new ad units. This is where the right column in News and Photos appeared, and the reduction in focus on content for the sake of advertising.

Today, when the monetization of VKontakte is transferred to the “smart” feed and mobile clients, such steps are not justified. In 2016, Facebook should have copied the developments of VKontakte, and not vice versa.”

Pavel Durov

Comments: 1

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1. Doronin P.N.
   09.25.2021 at 13:34 Oh my God!
   And not a word about Olisherchek Usmonov? Laughter, and that's all. Well, in Russia now it’s not camouflage to call true names Reply ↓