"Industriya Reklamy" ("Advertising Industry") No07 (33) April 2003

From morning till morning

This is about literally one of the pioneers, I would rather say pathfinders of Runet, the creator of one of the first Russian Internet periodicals. The first issue of Utro.ru appeared on monitors on September 28, 1999, which was four years ago. Four years online is a very long time. The vast majority of resources appeared later. Over this entire period Mikhail Gurevich has been the head of this project.

Background. He was born in Moscow on November 19, 1973. Early in 1991 he left for Israel. He graduated from the Tel Aviv Commercial Communications Academy and did military service in the Israeli army. He was a presenter of a news program at a Russian radio station in Israel and hosted the CHAVO NET (FAQ NET) program. This was the first radio program about the Internet in Russian. He came back to Russia early in 1999 and was a political analyst and a parliamentary reporter for RIA RosBusinessConsulting. Later he became the head of Utro.ru and has been in this position since. He gets on people's nerves, speaks Russian, English and Hebrew, and adores driving his own car. He is keen on modern history, and writes for Utro.ru under a pen-mane (actually, under three pen-names). He is married. His daughter Yeva is a year and a half old.

How did all this start?

The team first gathered on August 17, 1999, a year after the crisis. At that moment there was a kind of boom for creating Internet newspapers. We were born almost simultaneously with Lenta.ru and the new team of Gazeta.ru. In mid-September we started posting pilot issues, and on September 28 the first real issue of the newspaper was posted.

Where did this idea come from?

Everything is very simple. Investors appeared (RBC - RIA RosBusinessConsulting) who suggested launching Utro as a project. Respectively, we had no precedent, no experience, no mastered technologies. We sat in the office and invented everything from scratch. On September 28 the first issue was posted. At that time, we were 12 people and we had no idea who our readers were or where they were. No one except for me had any experience in network mass media. And now our monthly audience is 800,000 people. For example, yesterday we published an interview with Berezovsky; over 35,000 people read it. It aroused interest and passed through information agencies. Recently I have learned that now one can study Internet journalism at the Faculty of Journalism of the Moscow State University. This is nice. This means that there is such a market and such demand, which makes people study this at university.

Is Utro.ru a commercial project?

Investors have positioned it as commercial from the very beginning. Correspondingly, the task was to break even. From the very beginning when it was suggested that I make Utro I was afraid that the project would not break even, but I was persuaded to do it. Now I believe that a newspaper can exist normally and keep from being someone' political or economic speaking trumpet.

How does the fact that you are a part of the RBC holding influence your work?

RBC is our investor. A peculiar thing is that over the first eight months there was no advertising and no mentioning of Utro.ru on RBC's resources. Only after we have been settled and investors realized that Utro was not just a project but also a really existing periodical, our first advertisements appeared on RBC. We are colleagues, we are friends.

Does it ever happen that this get into your way?

In some things - yes, but now less than a year ago. There is a corporate policy that keeps us leashed in. There are corporate traditions, which are really restraining, but I understand that from a strategic viewpoint this is right, because this makes things simpler for us and simpler for RBC.

Are you often asked about being "booked"?

All the time. We are not a "booked" periodical because RBC is a commercial investor, not political and not an oligarch.

How are you positioned?

One the one hand, we have news, we monitor public and paid news lines. On the other hand, we post a large number of our own articles. This is why I believe that Utro is a full-fledged newspaper. We have analysis, we have both Moscow and regional reporters, we have authors who work for fees. And there are people who write just about life - culture, society, etc. Our information department works efficiently, as well as our calling service, which requests newsmakers to comment on events.
At the same time I sometimes say that Utro.ru is a daily magazine. The point is that our format is less restricted than a newspaper's. We can publish both articles on very urgent issues and what they call "pulp".

How do you differ from other online periodicals?

Everyone has their own niche. Everyone struggles for advertising budgets, for readers. We have been working on developing and forming this market so far, as this is a new industry. People constantly predict our death. I hear some analyst say that these periodicals will not survive. A year passes, our audience grows. Another smart analyst emerges and states that Internet periodicals have no chance. And this happens all the time.
From the viewpoint of advertising sales, Internet mass media are a difficult thing, of course. We have very serious competitors - all kinds of search engines, public e-mail services, etc. Some 70 percent of the budget, allocated for Internet advertising, goes to service resources. And this is a big problem for us, because services undoubtedly have less costs of user attraction. And this is the issue of audience research, the panel issue.
As of today, there is still no normal complete method for Internet audience research. We choose traditional research institutions for the sake of advertisers only, not for getting a real picture. This great myth about the transparency of Internet advertising brings more harm than good to market participants.

And still, who reads you?

The audience of almost all Internet periodicals is the average bored office user. Major Internet users in Russia use them during the day at work. While in the West the visit peak is after 9 p.m., in Russia it is at midday. This determines the time when main articles are posted.
As compared to our rivals, we are the most Russian newspaper. I mean that the share of our Russian audience is larger than at others.

How has Utro's structure changed?

The structure has remained mostly the same. From the viewpoint of navigation and contents we are constantly improving. Our top priority is to make a visitor comfortable. The person who has visited our site can click once to get to the article the person is interested in. One does not have to go through five levels to get to the material.

What sections of Utro.ru do you consider the strongest?

Politics, economics, thanks to our being a part of the RBC holding. The culture section is very strong, too. Strange as it may seem, we still have problems with the Internet section. There are also problems with the Auto section. Of course, we do have problems, like any periodical. We shall have to enhance the Politics section due to the upcoming elections.

The role of a headline is very important everywhere, and it must be especially important on the Internet.

Yes, it plays an enormous role on the Internet. If we see an unattractive headline in a newspaper or a magazine, we still could read the article. And if a headline is bad on the Internet, we are unlikely to click on it.

There is a problem of "yellow" headlines. Yesterday I saw an article on a serious analytical site headlined "Bush puts off Saddam's demise".

Unfortunately, today a commercial periodical cannot get rid of being "yellow" altogether. There is such a problem. And we acknowledge this. But it should be regulated at the level of the entire market. If you attract an advertiser saying: "I will give you a thousand click-trhoughs", it is beneficial for you to give a "yellow" headline and promptly provide him with this thousand. There is the cost of attracting a viewer. And this can be lower or higher. Unfortunately, one cannot always explain it to an advertiser that you know, we are small, but we are really serious. No doubt one should talk about this. Sooner or later the Internet mass media society will find a solution. We do need to agree on some ethical norms. We are "grown-up" mass media and must dictate the fashion ourselves.

Have your headlines changed much since 1999?

They have become more mature, I guess. Now one can see a trend to a more conservative attitude to them. We change the design of our banners and banners at our stations. They will lose their bygone "yellowness". And I really hope that our competitors will join our initiative, because this is beneficial for the market, beneficial for everybody. One cannot solve such problems alone, everybody has to agree to do it together.

Do you have a forum as a feedback instrument?

Of course the forum plays its role. I am pleased that something is constantly discussed there. Our journalists reply when they can. But it is extremely rare that they interfere in discussions. I can ask them to read what our readers write about them, but I cannot make them waste much time on quarrelling when you say a word and responded in ten words. Forums are a very good example that negative energy is always more active than positive.

What is the core difference between online and offline newspapers?

The crazy pace. The volume of information we pass through is undoubtedly incommensurable with that of an ordinary newspaper. It is comparable with CNN or an information agency only. This has its impact. Plus ratings. This plays its role, too. There are ratings for offline newspapers, but they are weekly, and our statistics are minute-by-minute. One moment you are the first on Rambler, half an hour later - the third. I can see: an article has been posted, if it was reacted to - good. If it wasn't - we offer something new.

Offline circulation and the visiting rate on the net - are they comparable?

It is hard to say. Let us compare an Internet mass media source with a monthly magazine. Paper press has got its own peculiarities: a person, who has bought a magazine, will read it and give to someone else to read. On the contrary, another peculiarity is that pretty often the announced circulation is overestimated by several times. Our situation is more transparent in this respect. We see the number of visits to a page, see people's IPs. But in general, we have the same problems: we do not know whether a visitor has read an article. For example, our visitor goes to five pages and reads five articles, or three articles and two news items on average, which is basically good. This means that the reader really looks through the periodical. However, there are visitors who open the front page only. It is hard to take them into account as full-fledged readers. This is why I would say that it is more justifiable to estimate the monthly audience of an Internet periodical. This reflects the real situation with visitors and reading more precisely.

Does an Internet journalist need to have some special skills?

Of course this is a very special world. A very fast reaction is required. Everything changes very quickly. Frequently commentaries are added to an article after it has been published. Sometimes three materials can be posted on the same topic during a day.

What do you think about commercialization of the Internet, about paid access to services?

Our format is different. If there are some special developments, which are absolutely exclusive, we are sure to introduce a fee. Maybe we shall soon introduce paid access to our archives.
But information for sale should cost money, of course. For example, RBC: 40 percent of information is public, 60 percent is closed. At the same time, the overwhelming majority of users do not even think about this, as they do not need this information. What can one sell? For example, the results of trade or exclusive analysis. The narrower the sector, the better it sells. In general this is of course finance, fuel, energy, hot news, which have the chance to be sold in the first 15 minutes after they emerge. In these 15 minutes they are bought by people for whom these minutes are a profit issue. Though quite often archives are much more expensive than "hot" information.
A publisher should be thoughtful about what and when to sell. If we just say that we are paid now, it is unlikely to bring about anything but a good-bye to our users.

What is your forecast about the Internet advertising market?

We can see a boost in interest to this media. For the first time, the Google search engine was recognized as the best-known and the most popular brand of the year. This is a very important event. The Internet is fashionable again, but at the same time there is no such crazy money as there was in 1999. One has started realizing that the Internet is an instrument, which requires skill to be used. As I see it, the situation will be much better this year. Additionally, one should keep in mind the elections. They whip up economic and social activity. Quite naturally, there will be more advertising on the net. So the market will grow and very seriously.

And are there any vacant niches?

Sure there are. I invent them quite regularly myself. The Russian market is very distinctly segmented. There are a lot of niches in the Russian economy in general and on the Internet and Runet in particular. There is actually no such notion as an Internet newspaper anywhere beyond Russia. In any event, there are not many of them. While in Russia, Internet mass media is a fully developed industry.

Do you have your editor's secrets accumulated over the four years of management?

One should trust people more. Here, managers are not able to delegate their authority to their subordinates. This fear triggers bad consequences. It often happens that an editor of a corresponding section understands the situation much better and more correct than we do. When you work with creative people, delegation of authority really helps, it is almost the only way for relations to work. Problems with staff fluctuation? Of the 12 people who started working here on the first day, seven are still here. The first designer left as he wanted to go into something creative. A journalist from the incident department left, she wanted to have some rest, as the pace of the section is exhausting.

They say you have high requirements for journalists and low salaries. Is this true?

Yes, our salaries are not high. But we are not aiming at being the highest paid periodical. It has been getting more prestigious to work with old Internet mass media like Utro.ru. And there are certain nuances here. We are four years old, we pay our salaries reliably. And stability often means more than the salary amount. If the atmosphere of a team is friendly, people call the editor by his first name, and he in turn treats them with respect, this is equal to an additional 20 percent to a salary. Trust and a democratic approach to relations do stand high.

Is Utro a team?

Unity is a peculiar feature of Internet mass media. One cannot do otherwise, here contact with people is much greater, much closer, it is more brotherly in some ways. There are "large" paper mass media where people just do not know each other. Our personnel are unique in this respect. For four years, we have been gathering after work. On Friday all designers and programmers who ever worked with us come to us. The staff has already been formed, and the most amazing thing that they almost do not drink. I have been in the information business for a long time, and I know that a journalist who does not drink is a very strange thing. And we sometimes clean our monitors with vodka, otherwise it just stands untouched.

Yekaterina Chinarova