VKontakte - getting to know the largest Russian-language social network! History of development, features, advantages, disadvantages, interesting facts

Over a considerable period of time, for many people, the beginning of their working days or a considerable portion of their weekend hours are devoted to a mandatory visit to their personal VKontakte account. It is no secret that social networks have become very firmly entrenched in the lives of a large audience of people who regularly use the Internet. But, I wonder, what exactly is so attractive about the VKontakte resource? Why do new visitors regularly register on it?

There are many questions of this type. There is only one answer to them - because VK is the largest video, audio and photo hosting in the RuNet with the ability to publish large text materials.

The project really offers a rich range of opportunities to its registered users. Although, now we won’t get ahead of ourselves, and let’s begin a systematic acquaintance with social media. network.

A little history

The service was founded in 2006 by our compatriot Pavel Durov, who lives in St. Petersburg. Initially, VK was developed as a detailed database-card index with questionnaires containing data on graduates and students of various universities, schools, colleges, etc. The idea implied simplification of search, acquaintance and communication between them, so to speak, to always “stay in touch.”

Pavel Durov wanted to create a Russian analogue of Facebook, but differing from it in some specificity. The site was first called “Students.ru”. However, the entire development team unanimously abandoned this very narrow name for a logical reason - every student before admission is an applicant, and every graduate is no longer a student. Therefore, the project was hastily renamed “VKontakte”.

The peculiarity was that the resource was intended exclusively for applicants (school graduates) and students studying or graduating from any professional educational institution. At the same time, the service had to have all the most important social criteria. networks:

• real names, surnames, videos and photographs;
• registration only using real email or personal phone numbers;
• take into account the subtleties of teaching the target audience - that is, take into account the nuances of education systems in each country of the CIS and Europe.

Available registration for everyone officially started at the end (November) of 2006. New, convenient, adapted to Russian social realities. The network quickly gained popularity among students, applicants and graduates. After two weeks of functioning of VKontakte, the developers quickly had to modernize and increase the power of the servers used, since the old ones could no longer cope with the huge loads.

Two months later (early 2007), there were already over 52,000 registered users, and the millionth visitor registered an account in mid-July of the same year. The popularity of the social network grew and in 2007 (end of March) the audience numbered over 10 million recorded registrations.

Among the leaders of Russian social networks. VKontakte networks emerged in 2010, rapidly overtaking its direct competitor, the Odnoklassniki.ru network.

Now, the project has about 450 million unique users, and the average daily traffic is approximately 87.75 million. The VK resource continues to improve and modernize.

Classification and functions of VKontakte

Study of the structure and functions of VKontakte. Relevance and novelty of coursework, diploma and master's theses on the structure and functions of the social network Vkontakte, find out expert recommendations and.

VKontakte (international name VK) is a Russian social network headquartered in St. Petersburg, the largest in Europe. The VKontakte interface is available in more than 70 languages. There are three versions of the site: full (vk com), mobile (m.vk com) and mobile applications (for iOS, Android, Windows Phone). Figure 1 shows a graph of changes in the number of users who visit the VKontakte website monthly.

Figure 1 - Graph of changes in the number of users who visit the VKontakte website monthly

The age category, as well as gender, of users is presented in Figure 2.

Figure 2 - Age category and gender of VKontakte users

It is known that young people under 24 years of age are the most influenced and trust the news published on social networks. As can be seen from the presented figures, on the VKontakte social network, more than half of the users (56.3%) represent such people.

The basis of the VKontakte social network is user profiles. Having analyzed the network resources of the social network, we can present the structure of VKontakte in Figure 3.

Figure 3 — VKontakte structure

Let's analyze possible ways of spreading fakes on the VKontakte social network. Shared resources are the main target for the spread of fake content. Users can publish an information post containing fake information on the main page or repost another author's information post on their wall. Thus, users become subjects of the spread of fakes.

User profiles can also be fake. Often, fake accounts are created for the purpose of using various functions of VKontakte without displaying their personal data. For example, they can be used to advertise various types of products and services. Also, such accounts are used by scammers to attract potential victims. The list of user's friends also does not exclude the possibility of adding fake accounts as friends.

One of the notable features of the VKontakte social network is the ability for group administrators to view the statistics of their community, which will display the percentage of fake accounts out of the total number of group members.

Let's introduce the classification of VKontakte content. For this social network, all content can be divided into 5 categories: text, image, video, audio, mixed content.

Figure 4 — VKontakte content classification

Fake content on VKontakte can be represented in any of these categories. When creating a post, the user can place content in it in any format: photo, video, audio, text, graffiti, polls. A user can create posts on his own page, on another user’s wall if it is not hidden by privacy settings, in a group or public page, and directly in the news feed itself. The content that will be added to the post can be downloaded from the user’s computer or selected from the available ones. The user can upload not only his photos, but also video and audio recordings. While viewing the news feed, the user sees changes and updates that have occurred on the pages of his friends or in the public pages and communities to which he is subscribed. He can either rate the post he likes by liking it, or share it with his friends by reposting it on his page, in a group in which he can be an administrator, or in private messages to a user or group of users.

The user also has the opportunity to comment on posts, photos, videos or entries on his wall. If the user liked any of the posts and he wants to save it, then he can add it to bookmarks.

A distinctive feature of the VKontakte function from other social networks is the presence of privacy settings. Users may set certain restrictions on the display of their personal information to certain types of users. To gain access to the information on the page, you must receive confirmation of your “Friends” status. To do this, the user must send a request to be added as a friend. The user who receives such an application can either accept or reject it. In case of refusal, the person being added will receive the “Subscriber” status and will be in the list of subscribers.

Messages on the VKontakte social network allow users to communicate with each other in private mode. This means that this correspondence will only be available to the parties who are participating in the conversation. There is no limit to the number of people who can be a participant. The user who created the conversation is its administrator, and only he can add and remove users from this conversation. Other participants have the right to rename, change the logo and turn off notifications for this conversation. In messages, users can send each other photos, videos, audio, posts from various public pages, polls, animations, documents and much more. Also in this social network there is the ability to send an audio message, that is, a recording.

It is advisable to divide all subjects of the social network into two main types: authorized and unauthorized users of VKontakte. The classification of VKontakte users is presented in Figure 5.

Figure 5 — Classification of VKontakte users

The first type includes legitimate users, fake accounts and social bots. Legitimate users of VKontakte, in turn, are divided into privileged users and ordinary ones. Privileged users are users who have more opportunities on a social network than others. For example, such users include administrators, moderators, and editors. Administrators have all the rights of a moderator and editor; they are responsible for managing communities, can appoint and remove community leaders, and edit any information about communities. Moderators keep order in communities and have the ability to edit content in communities.

Fake VKontakte accounts can also be used to get likes, votes, and disseminate various types of information. It is often quite difficult to distinguish a fake account from a legitimate user.

Unauthorized VKontakte users include deleted and frozen accounts. Each user can, at his own request, delete his own page from the social network. If the user wants to restore a deleted account, he can do so within 7 months from the date of deletion without losing all data. After this period, the account is permanently deleted. Freezing of a VKontakte page can occur if a user is noticed for suspicious activity, for example, sending spam, posting prohibited content on his page, using profanity, using programs to get likes, etc.

It is worth noting that fake accounts and social bots represent the main threat to the spread of fake information on social networks, and therefore require special attention from administrators of the VKontakte social network.

Based on the analysis, we will highlight the features of the social network that reveal the functionality of VKontakte and present them in Figure 6.

Figure 6 - VKontakte functions

Based on the above classifications, activities on VKontakte can be divided into the following categories:

1. Users communicate with each other, search for new acquaintances based on common interests.

2. Maintaining personal contacts.

3. Maintaining professional activities.

Based on the proposed classification in Figure 6, we will determine the key types of VKontakte memes. By meme we mean a unit of action of a social network user:

1. Sending messages to other users in DMs or on public pages. Short entries can be made public on user pages or groups. Subscribers can read recordings online or request updates, which are delivered to their mobile device as an SMS message.

2. Publishing photos, audio, video and other content. Every day, VKontakte users exchange more than 70 million photos and videos, which attract 2.5 billion likes per day.

3. Invitation to friends and subscribers.

4. Likes (the “Like” button) and comments.

Features of VKontakte

The VK social network, as mentioned earlier, is constantly developing, introducing new options and opportunities for ease of use of the project.

The main modern areas of the system’s operation include:

• of course, communicating with loved ones, relatives or friends;
• meeting and communicating with people you like;
• simplicity and comfort of a well-thought-out interface, despite the widest communication capabilities of the project;
• entertaining online games for fans;
• many additional extra-features (specific features), unique add-ons, useful programs that turn ordinary communication or acquaintance into an exciting activity;
• a great opportunity to download free video, audio, photos and text files posted on social media. networks by other participants;
• the widest range of personal page settings and many others. etc.

The list could be incredibly long, so we’ll focus on the main points. The remaining possibilities will certainly be presented and thoroughly analyzed in other blog articles.

The portal “Vkontakte.ru” (or “VK.com”) is not only the leader of the Runet in terms of attendance. He is also a major player in many popular entertainment areas on the Internet:

• VKontakte is now the most impressive photo bank in Europe and the CIS countries. The number of images and photographs uploaded to the system daily is in the tens of millions;
• the largest archive of audio materials in the same territory. Every day, users upload about 105,000 music recordings;
• especially serious video card index. Every day the database is replenished by 94,560 - 98,450 units. videos;
• up to 96.7 million forwarded messages are recorded every 24 hours.

Of course, these facts are amazing. Looking at them, it is not difficult to understand the reason for the popularity of VKontakte.

All users of the social network in question. networks are classified into four broad categories:

• people who registered only for communication and dating;
• using the network for all kinds of online businesses;
• users who do not pursue a specific goal, but simply follow the direction of the current trend. They think something like this: “Friends have personal pages, why should I create the same?”;
• a mixed type of participants using VKontakte in all directions at once.

Important! Scientists have proven that an ordinary person who visits a social network without a specific purpose at least 3 times a day is already considered addicted to the Internet. Consider the result of this truly serious observation!

Why is the social network “VKontakte.ru” needed?

Realizing that this statement is, let’s say, some kind of exaggeration, you still became interested, and, remembering that you have not seen or communicated with one of your old acquaintances for a hundred years, ask the archivist to show you, if there is one, your friend’s box.

“But first you have to register!” — the archivist answers. He writes down your name, what locality you live in, creates a separate box for you, after which he is kindly ready to provide you with any assistance in finding the necessary information. “What’s your friend’s name?.. And where does she live?.. Here, please, is her box...”

You open and look at a friend’s photo, see a list of her friends and leave her a note inviting her to be friends and communicate. You are assured that your friend will definitely read your message as soon as she checks her mailbox. You are interested, you find another friend, another acquaintance, then someone finds you, and communication begins...

“Can I leave my photos here so my friends can see them?” - you ask. “Yes, absolutely! - they answer you. - And not only photographs, but any information you want, send letters, communicate, exchange messages - everything is provided! We can also send invitation letters to the addresses you provide for those who do not yet know about our establishment!” - says the archivist.

This, of course, is simply grotesque, but in general this is roughly how the VKontakte.ru service works.

When I received an email from a friend with an invitation to the Vkontakte.ru website, I registered on it simply out of politeness. Back then, the site was one of many social networks I saw that were gaining popularity day by day. Subsequently, the ability to send invitations to friends made me a regular on this particular social network.

Only registered users can view information posted on the Vkontakte.ru website. Of course, it’s difficult to call a site with tens of millions of users a closed social network, but on October 1, 2006, when the domain name vkontakte.ru was registered, we had an analogue of the popular English-language service Facebook.

It is difficult to list all the capabilities of the service. I just go to Vkontakte.ru every day after checking my mail and find out news from friends, make appointments, receive and write letters, draw blots on the “wall” for relatives, and show them my photographs. By the way, you can limit access to any of your data, including photos, “only for friends” or “for friends and their friends.”

Legally, the owner of the site is VKontakte LLC, and there are many rumors and versions regarding specific names. It is precisely because of the lack of clear and open information about the owners and shareholders that thoughts about the involvement of the FSB in all this are constantly being circulated. However, the story is not new... The general director of VKontakte LLC is Pavel Durov, who is positioned on the site as its creator.

A number of psychologists note that if a person devotes more than one hour every day to a website or service, this is a sign of emotional dependence. Recently, my friend’s number of friends on the Vkontakte.ru service exceeded 300, and all of them are her real friends and acquaintances with whom she would like to keep in touch. This, of course, is not a completely ordinary case, but on my Vkontakte.ru service I have collected not only friends, relatives, acquaintances, but also colleagues, all classmates, fellow students, former teachers and neighbors.

Vkontakte.ru is so popular, perhaps also because easy navigation allows even a novice in the Internet world to quickly get used to it. But in the modern mobile world, it is impossible to track the movements of all the people you are interested in without such a permanent database of the contacts you need. It is not surprising that in 2008 the site became the first most visited site in Russia and since then has not fallen below second place.

Tags: social networks, websites, Internet resource, communication on the Internet, VKontakte

Key advantages of VK

The general enthusiasm for the resource among Russian-speaking users lies, of course, not in the only reason. The main predisposing and directly influencing factors are:

• The modern pace of life is dangerous due to social isolation, so social networks in a certain way replace full-fledged contacts. People who are tired in the evening from work and all sorts of activities prefer to pass the time in front of the monitor, texting or exchanging photos. They have no time to go somewhere and communicate live with friends, relatives and friends. Some people have actually “lost” their acquaintances over time and it is more comfortable for them to keep in touch through social media. networks with an unfamiliar user;
• cognitive opportunities and self-PR - everyone is attracted by personal information about other users on the network, and the chance to show their best, sometimes completely unreal, side is of even greater interest;
• A VK account allows you to contact someone if you lose your phone number or lose your mobile phone. You can also arrange a meeting, invite to events, congratulate you on holidays, etc. Nowadays, SMS is gradually losing relevance due to its limitations, for example, due to some complexity of typing, limited message volume, functional features of the device used, certain financial costs and so on.;
• almost absolute anonymity. This is important for some people because, thanks to a fake (fake, unreal) account, they can express unpleasant truths about other people, complain to unfamiliar users, or discuss some intimate issues with them. There will be no consequences if everything is done correctly;
• thematic groups that bring together participants based on specific interests. When you have a passion, hobby or activity, it is very easy to find like-minded people on a social network.

Targeted advertising on VKontakte.

Another motive for creating groups is target or targeted advertising (from the English target - goal). The effectiveness of such advertising is several times higher than usual. Specially trained targetologists will find exactly your audience on VK and target your advertising to them. After all, a social network makes it possible to segment your clients by gender, age, profession, interests, geolocation, and so on.

Negative points

In addition to significant advantages, VKontakte is characterized by the presence of important disadvantages:

• The majority of active users are minors. They can even hide behind seemingly well-designed adult accounts;
• full availability of materials “for adults”. Moreover, there are very frank and excessively depraved video files or articles, which are contraindicated for the fragile child’s psyche to get acquainted with;
• there are a lot of scammers who strive to deceive and take possession of other people’s money or important information in every possible way;
• the ability to create completely fake user profiles for various purposes, including illegal purposes;
• a lot of time is lost when responding to intrusive offers to meet people, add friends, join communities or groups;
• the number of inadequate people is increasing, trying to stupidly compensate for their insignificance and mediocrity with all sorts of garbage mailings, disgusting offers, obscene language, etc.

Such shortcomings, in principle, are characteristic of all social networks. networks. If you show patience and timely tolerance, then these disadvantages do not seem to be any serious.

How to make a website from a VKontakte group: step-by-step instructions

Step 1 . To create a site from your group, go to the “Management” section in the mobile version, and on the computer - in the menu on the right. Then open the “Community Site” section and click “Create a Site.”

Before creating a website, make sure that your VKontakte group is correctly formatted and that the page contains up-to-date information. Fill out the description, provide contacts and add fresh photos to your albums. Also, if you have a closed group, make it open.

Step 2 . Think about the landing page title. You can leave the name of the group in it or enter a new phrase.

Step 3 . Complete the description. Information from your community will automatically appear in this block, but you can edit it. Visitors will see this information along with the title on the first screen of the landing page.

Step 4 . Download a cover for your home screen. Choose a beautiful image with a resolution of at least 800x400 pixels. If you ignore this point, the standard gradient will be used.

Step 5 . Choose an action button - it will be located at the top of your site and attracts the main attention. Here are the available options:

• “Leave a request” - the user will indicate his contacts (name and phone number) in the form, and they will be sent to you in community messages;
• “Call” - the visitor will see your number, and if he visited the site from a mobile phone, he can immediately go to the call;
• “Write to email” - when clicked, the future client will go to the interface where he can write to your active email;
• “Write on VKontakte” - authorized users will enter into a dialogue with your community, and those who are not registered on VK will be able to leave contacts for feedback;
• “Go to site” - this button will redirect landing page visitors to an external site whose address you specify.

Step 6 . Add benefits. Tell us about the main advantages of your product or service. The benefit must be between 10 and 90 characters in length.

Step 7 . Add selections of products - you need to place products in the VK group in advance. Collect top-selling items, tickets to your event, or any other items you want to highlight.

Step 8 . Post reviews. Select a discussion topic with reviews and site visitors will be able to see how your customers rate you. In this case, the administrator's responses will not be displayed on the site.

Step 9 . Website address. Finally, click “Publish.” The site will be created and will be located at: vk.link/community_domain.