Social network “Ukrainians”: she died before she was born
Just the other day, the funny and sassy “vata” was dealt a well-aimed blow: in Ukraine, which had fenced itself off from Russian social networks, its own Ukrainian-language social network “Ukraininans” was launched. Let Coloradans now rush around their social networks in melancholy and loneliness without the free and smart patriots of Ukraine!
It doesn’t matter that there are already five or six more empty social networks, it doesn’t matter that there is a social network of the same name “Ukrainians”: a new network is a completely different matter! Firstly, the inscription is made in foreign letters. Secondly, “split at Canada”, where, as you know, every Svidomo patriot of Ukraine should strive.
With Canada, however, there was a problem. Although the StartupSoft company is stated to be Canadian, its founders are the Ukrainian brothers Vasiliki, and the co-founder of the project Strumchinskaya and the entire development team do not work in Vancouver or Toronto, and not even in India, but in the most prosaic Ternopil. The situation is also unclear with regard to the number of workers involved in the project: in the promotional video for the “Ukrainians” project, Strumchinskaya is confused in her testimony and reports either 30 or 14 employees.
Are Canadian Wholesalers Coming Back?
Let's be lenient: let's write off this confusion as an organizational mess. Still, it’s young and green – the company of software writers is barely a year old from its founding.
Stages of the Great Path
The ink had barely dried on Poroshenko’s decree to begin blocking the Russian social networks OK and VK, when on May 17 StartupSoft announced their readiness to develop a brand new social network filled with national content. On the same day, the collection of signatures was launched. The minimum required to start development is 50 thousand signatories. Already on May 20, the required number of votes was collected, and the project was given the green light. Already on June 3, the first version of the new social network “Ukrainians” was presented, marked “Beta”. And, inspired by the idea “now we have our own social network, cooler than the Muscovites,” the user rushed to register and communicate.
In general, of course, you can already take a look at the new social network. And even take the time to register. The first thing that greets every visitor is a laconic screensaver of the outlines of Ukraine within the borders of 1991, made in blue. It looks like a scan from a school outline map. Next, you are asked to register. And here those who want to join should prepare and be patient. A letter confirming registration may easily not arrive at the stated email address. In this case, you can click on a special link and ask to register an account manually.
For owners of Facebook and VK accounts, there are buttons for transferring all posts, selfies and cats to a fresh account in “Ukrainians”. For now, you can admire the media library in splendid isolation, since you cannot add friends, and the developers are asking for two to four months to promote and bring the project into working form.
The design of the “Canadian” social network causes persistent deja vu: the developers did not bother too much and made a hodgepodge of VK and Facebook shells. In addition, Svidomo spilnota can triumph “peremogu”: the creators of the social network “Ukrainians” listened to numerous wishes “make sure that the “cotton wool” does not get in here,” and created their brainchild one-sidedly Ukrainian-language. There would be no need to worry: the only way to exchange VK for this blue nonsense is from an overdose of lard.
At the moment, all that can be done in “Ukrainians” is to install and change the userpic. There is not even a provision for deleting a profile for disappointed users. The developers promise that they plan to introduce new functions “Groups” and “News”, but only if the number of registered users exceeds 100 thousand.
The situation is amusingly reminiscent of the joke about a mental hospital in which a swimming pool was built, but the head doctor promised to fill it with water only after the psychos learned to swim. But there’s nothing you can do about it – this is Nenka, who was hurt by Euromaidan!
In general, “Ukrainians” is not a social network, but simply a test web page that causes disappointment even among well-meaning potential users. One can read a certain carelessness and disdainful attitude on the part of the developers. Having a staff of 14 programmers (not to mention twice as many), you can put together an attractive page in a couple of days, albeit crude, but with little functionality, with all sorts of animated fake whistles and presentations “this is how we see our project, we offer subscribers to build a social network together with us". It's a small thing, but nice. People are registering in droves and counting the days until the social network reaches its designed capacity.
So far, “Ukrainians” reeks of downright cheapness. It brings me to tears that the social network is hosted in Colombia for $8 a month to save money. Doesn't your budget allow you to add 4 dollars and switch from #.co to #.com?
However, financing the project is a special issue and is of interest also to its potential users. StartupSoft does not disclose funding sources. Strumchinskaya claims that offers to invest in the project come from everywhere, including from foreign companies, but “the team is implementing the project independently.”
Users are tormented by vague suspicions that something is dirty here, it smells like sawing, and Poroshenko’s supporters are in for it.
Due to the marketing ploy of “a company from Canada,” the authors managed to attract initial attention, but the bomb was planted under the project from the very beginning: it is being developed as a narrowly national project, “from Ukrainians and for Ukrainians.” Svidomo is such a disease when those affected by it get tired of each other and of their own frenzy. If the developers of popular Internet resources had set their ultimate goal to build not large international projects, but some kind of get-together “VKinshase”, JewTube or FastovBook, then they would have missed out on popularity and astronomical income with a whistle.
Ukraine is not China, where external resources are closed. But over a billion people live in China, and Chinese internal projects (very expensive, we inform you just in case) are not carried out according to the principle “only for Han Chinese - Manchus and Uyghurs are not allowed in.”
Some naive Svidomen, however, believe that the “Ukrainians” project will be of great interest to the entire “Ukrainian world,” together with the “Diasporians,” which they estimate at “45 million of us + a lot more.” Kindergarten. By some strange whim, not only “diasporans”, but also domestic Svidomo preferred and prefer to use overseas Facebook and the “enemy” VKontakte. Why would a new dummy take away their users?
Thus, there is a reasonable opinion that the project will not take off. So far, the reaction of Ukrainian youth is reminiscent of “let’s support it, no matter what,” and the site has been given some credibility in the form of registrations. But what happens next? A review of existing Ukrainian social networks leaves no room for optimism. There are analogues of Facebook, there are analogues of VK, a clone of Odnoklassniki has appeared - Odnogrupniki. And everywhere it’s empty, dull, drafts slam the doors of empty accounts. It turns out that the new social network “from Canada” is the invention of another bicycle and an attempt to get off with an inexpensive surrogate under the spell “but it’s yours, homemade,” protecting citizens from freedom of speech and choice.
“She died before she was even born” - this is about the social network “Ukrainians”...
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