Odnoklassniki

URL	http://odnoklassniki.ru/
Commercial?	Yes
Type of site	Social Networking
Registration	required; SMS-paying needed for those who live in Russia (~$1-2)
Owner	Digital Sky Technologies, Forticom, Albert and Irina Popkov[1]
Created by	Albert Popkov (founder and head)
Launched	March 2006

Odnoklassniki (Classmates in Russian) 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 in March 2006.^[2]

The website currently claims that it has more than 30 million registered users. The website also currently has an Alexa Internet traffic ranking of 49.^[3]

The website was a recipient of the Runet Prizes in 2006^[4] and 2007.^[5]

In February 2008 British company I-CD accused Albert Popkov of violation of their copyright. According to I-CD Popkov as an employee of I-CD worked on their projects 192.com and Passado. His duties included supervising of beta trials of social network Passado in Russia. Popkov then allegedly used the proprietary information to create his own Odnoklassniki site very similar to Passado. Popkov denies those allegations.^[6]

September 15, 2008 Vedomosti announced that Popkov spouses, founders and key shareholders, have sold controlling interest in the network to Digital Sky Technologies (DST), owners of Mail.ru. DST and Forticom together control 58% of the network.^[1]

[edit] See also

• List of social networking websites
• Vkontakte

[edit] References

[edit] External links

• Odnoklassniki Plus: an extension for odnoklassniki.ru
• Russians flock to web to find old flames - Russia Today, December 26, 2007
• Odnoklassniki-Club.ru
• Odnoklassniki.ru, VKontakte.ru, Facebook.com
• [2]
• [3]
• [4]
• [5]

This website-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v • d • e