| URL | odnoklassniki.ru |
|---|---|
| Type of site | Social Networking |
| Registration | Required; no payment needed since August 31, 2010 |
| Available language(s) | Russian and Ukrainian |
| Owner | Digital Sky Technologies |
| Created by | Albert Popkov (founder and head) |
| Launched | March 4, 2006 |
| Alexa rank | 77 (January 2012[update])[1] |
Odnoklassniki (Одноклассники in Russian, Classmates) is a social network service for classmates and old friends reunion popular in Russia and other former Soviet Republics. It was created by Albert Popkov on March 4, 2006.[2]
The website currently claims that it has more than 45 million registered users and 10 million daily unique visitors.[3] The website also currently has an Alexa Internet traffic ranking of 102 worldwide and 5 for Russia. Revenues in the first quarter of 2008 for Odnoklassniki was $3.3 million.[4] [5] [6]
"The site has been online for at least eight years. Compared with internet averages, Odnoklassniki.ru's users tend to be under the age of 35, and they tend to be men earning less than $30,000 who have postgraduate educations and browse from home. The site is particularly popular among users in Kyrgyzstan (where it is ranked #4) and Armenia (#2).[7]
"The server that hosts odnoklassniki.ru is located in Moscow, Russian Federation. The server is located on the Golden Telecom, Moscow, Russia network. The programming language used on the site is Java and the main language used for the site's textual content is Russian. The site is using the Tomcat web server." [8]
The website was a recipient of the Runet Prizes in 2006[9] and 2007.[10]
In February 2008, British company I-CD accused Albert Popkov of violation of their copyright. According to I-CD, Albert Popkov as an employee of I-CD worked on their projects 192.com and Passado until his resignation in November 2005. In December 2006 the company raised 10 million Euro to expand Passado in Russia. [11] Albert Popkov allegedly used the proprietary information to create his own site very similar to Passado. He denied those allegations[12] but was later dismissed as Managing Director by Odnoklassniki[13] and in November 2009 after the first day of trial in the Royal Court of Justice[14] in London I-CD and Alastair Crawford completely dropped all charges against Albert Popkov and Odnoklassniki[15] after Albert Popkov and Odnoklassniki agreed to pay i-CD an undisclosed amount of cash in settlement of the case against them.
On September 15, 2008, Vedomosti announced that Albert Popkov spouses, founders and key shareholders have sold controlling interest in the network to Digital Sky Technologies (DST), the owner of Mail.ru. DST and Forticom together control 58% of the network.[16]