‘Online has been downloaded about 10,000 times’: Kazan IT specialists relaunched substitute for Instagram*

“Now the project is restarting”

Kazan IT specialists developed an Online applications as early as last year, head of the group of developers Artyom Ilderyakov told Realnoe Vremya, it will have the functions of Instagram* banned in Russia. The developers placed Online in markets last August but a series of functions is unavailable there now because they were turned off. According to Ilderyakov, Online in fact was already launched, consequently users’ feedback was collected and the project started to be developed from a perspective of future technologies.

At this moment the app doesn’t work because it is being modernised. As the IT specialist says, before launching the restart, Online had stories and a messenger, one could create posts — that’s to say, it was almost a full replacement of Instagram*. As the interlocutor of the newspaper added, users complained about sign up errors. Ilderyakov assured us that now this function is turned off because a new version of the app is underway. Now the application is created again, and the stack of technologies changed there, this is why everything is going to be completely different, even design is going to change a bit. He specified that earlier there were few complaints from users and all the issues were resolved after updates.

“The change of the stack of technologies is one of the main reasons why we decided to restart the app, we also developed a number of functions for businesses that required a global work on the current version, that’s why we decided to start it all from scratch. We have some ideas and groundwork we will start introducing. Online has been downloaded about 10,000 times since the placement of the app in markets. The design is going to change just a bit, while the interface will stay, new functions are going to appear. But now we shouldn’t talk about it because there is a lot of competition in the market,” the IT specialist explained.

“More than 1.5 million rubles have already been invested”

As Ilderyakov added, they are creating their own project fully on their own. He stressed that Online requires more investment. Nowadays the IT specialists have spent more than 1.5 million rubles in it. And this amount is anyway little, more will be needed.

“We haven’t applied for state subsidies or grants because this adds certain responsibility in front of grant makers. And the grant can be taken away too, this is why we decided to make everything on our own,” the developer shared.

Also, after the update, the IT specialists are going to write a special algorithm that will eliminate 18+ content. It is simply going to be blocked immediately after detection. Fake user and like engagement is going to be combatted too.

Besides the functions, the developers want to improve functions for businesses. The developers will try to present the updated and fully operating app by the end of the year.