Last week Rostelecom, the Russian national telecom operator, rolled out the beta version of its long-awaited new portal last week, offering visitors what the developer believes to be an easy-to-use and reliable combination of search, news and ‘life navigation’ capabilities.
Available in Russian only, Sputnik.ru is a service and search portal designed to “improve the users’ quality of life,” Rostelecom says.
In addition to providing a venue for citizens to access a variety of government services and official information – a key function of the website – Sputnik.ru also offers a range of features that Rostelecom hopes will have special appeal across various populations and income categories.
This includes a selection of news from an array of topical areas, such as politics, finance, sports, cars and technology, covering both Russia and other countries. Visitors can see regularly updated weather forecasts for their home regions, too. As a special feature for households, the portal offers users a full list of TV shows and movies – currently for the 24 most popular Russian-language channels, including regional ones – and the functionality to pick a channel and watch it online right from Sputnik.ru.
Another feature for citizens across diverse demographic and economic boundaries is “A Convenient Russia,” a special page that is expected to help a user with anything from purchasing a car to rehabilitating a disabled person.
There’s a dedicated service for the elderly and the sick as well. A wide variety of information is provided, and a user can ‘walk’ on e-maps offered for his home town to find the nearest drugstore – while comparing prices and reading about prescriptions online – public utility and other government organizations that serve his neighborhood. Sputnik.ru is also a commercial service platform, offering veterinarian services, for example.
No censor capability, to ‘weed out’ government-blacklisted content, has been incorporated thus far.
The portal idea began as far back as 2006, but took shape only around 12 months ago when it evolved from just another search engine, to offering users a broader selection of online services. In early April 2014, when the project was first leaked to the press, the media expected Rostelecom would also supply Sputnik.ru with a proprietary web browser and even its own payment system – although these features have not been included at the beta stage of development.
The multifaceted endeavor, especially the government services component, is the latest in a series of recent Rostelecom projects to bring the Russian nation and its government into closer e-interaction. Architect of an array of ambitious national IT projects, the operator has already engineered and completed phase one of its “Project 07,” a national cloud computing platform to be fully assembled by next year; it has partnered with the Russian Ministry of Telecom and Mass Communications to launch Gosuslugi.ru, an online venue for people to receive government services; it led a medical e-record and e-card project; and it has been actively connecting the regions to Russia’s e-government system.
While Yandex, the NASDAQ-listed Russian search giant, seems largely apolitical, some see Rostelecom’s competing initiative as part of the Russian government’s larger plan to bring the Russian Internet under its control.
However, a stronger state influence in the Rostelecom search engine could ensure that Sputnik succeeds in capturing a significant share of the domestic Internet search market.
The future will tell if Sputnik can succeed in this respect. Since even Google failed to assert its leadership on the market vs. Yandex, one may wonders how any new comer — with presumably far less technological and marketing expertise — will compete effectively against the two giants.
