Immediately after the prohibition of Russian “Odnoklassniki” and “Vkontakte” team of programmers offered Ukrainians to create a domestic social network. To call it — the Ukrainians, that is, the “Ukrainians”. The initiative quickly gathered more than 67 thousand subscribers, and the developers started to work. “Today” was able to get to the shop where they honed the new Ukrainian social network. To see the interface and create your first page can be had today.
The office is located in Ternopil. We met a co-founder of Ukrainians Alexander Struminska. “Yes, here is one of Ukrainian social network on which we are currently working very actively with the support of Ukrainians,” she says and starts into the great hall.
— How can this happen?
— On the project here are 14 professionals that do the program, but in General over the creation of the Ukrainian social network employs about 30 people.
— What do you have for the team?
— On the one hand, the co-founder of the Ukrainian social networks I am. On the other hand, there is a company startup incubator StartUpSoft. They are in the market for quite a long time. Ukrainian social network is one of their projects.
— What social network?
— We want to give users the data security they need most. The second is the content. Most people want music. We won’t use pirated content.
— And what is unique about your product?
— One point of uniqueness is the ability to monetize your own traffic. If users are to post unique content, and it will be interesting to other users, are the views, likes, comments, then they will earn money for it.
— To what audience expect?
We do not set limits in some age-related aspects, but is very important for us to make a very good local product. That is, the target customer at this stage is Ukrainian, who understands the language, wishes to develop and maintain the resource, which will be very soon in Ukraine. The first functionality will be exclusively in the Ukrainian language, that is, other possibilities of visits will not be as such.
— Why the name of it Ukrainians?
— First of all, it was decided that it would be a Ukrainian product, made by Ukrainians. We see ourselves as a local good product. But do not refuse that in the future the name may be changed. In fact, now a lot of user feedback. They recommend changing the name does not have to be a local product and beyond our country.
— That is, the plans include a name change?
— Do not exclude the possibility that the name will be changed if users will continue to demand this. But it will definitely be after we become good local product. Then together with the users we will decide to change the name, or it is the usual good product that doesn’t need rebranding.
— Why did you decide to first create a local product, not to act as the same “Classmates” and “Vkontakte”, which can communicate at all?
— Technically difficult to make a good product for everyone not paying attention to the boundaries of different segments. Therefore, we have decided that it is better to start from small and then to develop this ambitious product.
— Do you consider among your users people who want to correspond with relatives from Russia?
— Limits for such segments is not clear. Availability will depend on the willingness of the user to use this platform. It is in the public domain. Any restrictions on the registration, for example, passport, will not. The only point on which I wish to draw attention is the fact that the first functionality will be available only in the Ukrainian language. The next stage is integration with other languages and improvement of functionality.
— What languages are planned?
— Planned everything. Don’t want to limit yourself to some small circle.
— You are not the first in Ukraine tried to make the domestic social network. All of them ended not very successful. What are the five mistakes that have made your predecessors.
The most significant reason may be the team. Investment. The technical aspect, which concerns the understanding of the development of the scale of the market. The willingness to accept that many users will want to use this social network. Focus only on the local market. The reluctance to marry him.
Did not have the support of the people. Created unique programs that did not allow to develop versatile.
We are working on this product. Listen to requests, we do plan to finally high-quality Ukrainian product, Ukrainian social network.
— Where is the money for the project?
For the investment side of this project meets the company-incubator. But does the huge number of proposals from the Diaspora and from the local Ukrainians (in Canada, where the headquarters of the company. — Ed.). Offer to help financially, because a huge number of people believe in this. But we took this positioning that this project we are implementing on their own.
— How many people have written to you during this time?
— Thousands. I write not only from Ukraine. Writing from abroad. Diaspora offers help. Spread in their circles information. Believe even users of Facebook that this product is needed and it must be implemented.
Alexander. Radiates optimism and believes that the new network like
There?
— Yes, a lot of work. We did not expect that so quickly get the required number of subscribers. Before starting the project, the organizers appealed to the users. If before June 1 of the project will subscribe 50 thousand users, it will run. The required number of subscribers managed to gather in four days.
Since in the first part?
The first part will be very minimal and simple. Will the profile and the list of functionals, which we will add over time. Just so people know that we’re working on it. And after a while we this functionality will do.
— In the profile you can upload your photos, add friends?
— Photos, Yes, add friends yet. Friends and the news will be in the next stage.
— When will be the next stage?
As a second stage we plan to run after the users again will support us and say Yes, we want this social network and encourage your friends to register on the website. We will put this time reverse counter from one hundred thousand. That is, when there is a hundred thousand registrations, we will open the following functionality — news and friends. Will have the opportunity to share content and invite you to communicate your friends are already inside in circles.
