From LiveJournal Diaries to VK Clips: A Brief History of Blogging in Russia

Long texts and offline blogs

blogging pioneer consider American Justin Hall: in 1994 he launched a page links.net. The first such resource in Russia appeared in the same year. It was called "Bred-Society": the creators designated its format with the word "series", and publications in them were "issues". Thoughts of the first bloggers you can read and now. The content of Delirium-Society consisted only of texts and resembled journalistic essays.

In 1999, two international platforms are launched - Blogger and LiveJournal. In Russia, LiveJournal was the most popular. Pioneer of Russian LiveJournal was linker: he registered there almost immediately after the launch - November 27, 1999, but began to publish posts only in the 2000s. The first entry in Russian was made by a user under the nickname at: on November 30, he wrote “Is it even possible in Russian? Well, more so."

In the same year, 1999, the first stand-alone blogs appeared, that is, blogs on separate Internet pages. In 2002, it was an analogue of the international diary platforms Diary.ru. And two years later, Russia began to hold the first branch competition "Runet Prize". It still exists.

In 2003 in the USA launched social network MySpace. The emphasis in it was no longer on texts, but on photographs, audio recordings and clips. Both independent and popular artists shared their work on the platform. Russian version of MySpace appeared in 2008, but did not live long - it closed the following summer. The reason for the low popularity of the platform was probably the belated launch: by the end of the 2000s, there were already enough multi-format blogging services in Runet.

Vlogs, microblogs, publics

YouTube started in 2005. The first Russian video was uploaded there in the spring of 2007. Did this is not a blogger, but a musician Pyotr Nalich: the video for the song “Guitar” has collected 8.5 million views in 16 years. In the autumn of the same year, a Russian-language version of the platform appeared. At first, users uploaded funny clips, home videos and excerpts from programs and sports broadcasts. In September 2009 hosted appeared "Mr. Freeman is a philosophical animated web series. It immediately became very popular, and individual issues spread throughout the Russian Internet.

But YouTube began to seriously replenish content from Russian-speaking bloggers only in the 2010s. Prior to this, the authors mastered RuTube. An analogue platform for video was launched in 2006. In 2008 there appeared one of the first famous Russian vloggers is Ilya Maddison. On the Maddyson channel, he posted reviews of games. In 2009, he was appointed editor of the gaming section of the service.

Simultaneously with RuTube, Habrahabr (now Habr) and VKontakte (VK) were launched in Russia. At the start, it was only possible to post on the wall and lead communities. In 2007, in addition to texts and photos in the social network allowed publish audio and video, as well as draw graffiti. In 2008, an ad appeared there.

In 2006, the microblogging platform Twitter was also launched. The Russian-language interface was added there only seven years later. In 2007, Yandex launched its blogging platform Ya.Ru. Pikabu launched in 2009. The first closed in 2014, the second still exists.

In 2009, several blogging awards were held in Russia at once. The Runet Prize contest, which awarded various, not only blogging resources, was supplemented with "Runet Blog" And "Hero of Runet". The latter was completely popular: only netizens voted for their favorite authors. Ilya Maddison took the victory. More "Hero of Runet" was not awarded.

Since then, there have been more contests and forums for content authors. For example, in 2015 appeared VK Fest, and in 2020 the project "TopBLOG» is both a competition and a free educational program for aspiring authors. Young bloggers can learn more about promotion tools, working with analytics and other secrets of the profession there. And the experienced ones - to exchange knowledge and actually compete for the title of "TopBLOGER".

Photos, short videos, vlogs on TV

In 2010 on YouTube appears Russian advertising. The growing popularity of hosting and the possibility of monetization attracts many authors. Blogs such as "AdamThomasMoran" ("+100500"), "This is good", "Ruslan Usachev", "BadComedian", "FoggyDisaster" (Katya Klep), "Maria Way", "EeOneGuy" and "RomaAcorn" are launched (Roma Acorn). The top genre in the early 2010s were reviews of viral videos, movies, and games. Other popular formats are sketches, beauty blogs, life vlogs, and DIY. In addition, authors can monetize content by affiliate networks, referral links and direct cooperation with advertisers.

Youtubers start doing collaborations, production centers and blogging associations appear, such as My Duck's Vision, CarambaTV and Thank You, Eva.

In 2012-2013, Vine is launched, a platform with photos and short videos. Popular Russian viners were Pasha Mikus, TatarkaFM, Nastya Ivleeva and Ida Galich. In 2016, the service closed, and bloggers moved to other platforms. Another popular content format that appears at this time is streams and live broadcasts. Live communication with subscribers, passing games or reviewing content in real time is carried out, in particular, on Twitch and YouTube Live.

Internet content creators are gradually becoming superstars. They are photographed for magazine covers, invited to advertising, series and television. For example, Katya Klep led author's column in the program "Rules of Style" on the Disney channel, and Roma Acorn was co-host of one of the issues of "Let them talk." Reviews of viral videos from "+100500" completely turned into a program: they were broadcast on "Pepper", and then on "Che". Show included into the program grid and now.

And in 2014, Russia passed a law equating content authors with a daily audience of over 3,000 people to the media. His canceled in 2017.

Trends, interviews, channels

In the late 2010s, there is a second wave of short videos. First of all, because of the global popularity of the Chinese service TikTok. The format is gradually penetrating many other blogging platforms, including Russian ones: VK adds clips, the Yappy app appears. Dances, sounds, masks, memes - all popular formats and designs of short videos are called trends.

In 2015 in the Telegram messenger launch channel format. They are turned on by established bloggers and newcomers. In 2021 in Telegram appeared advertising.

At the end of 2018, Yandex. Music" appeared section "Podcasts". Audio bloggers often duplicate YouTube posts. Interviews and shows of various formats, produced by large film crews, are becoming trending on the platform.

So for almost 30 years, blogging has finally turned from a solo hobby into a full-fledged professional environment. Daily audience of platforms with content in Russia calculated tens of millions of users. Author's channels, pages, podcasts have become the same source of information as the classical media.