Mobile-Review.com celebrates 5th anniversary

They say time flows differently in the Internet – more events here, one year as three, or even five. Back in 2002 we launched Mobile-Review.com with only a team of three, even though it is really hard to believe this today. One of them, Eldar Murtazin, wrote articles, attended presentations and posted news – a do-it-all man, in a way. There were no other authors – the whole project was hinging on pure enthusiasm, and the investments were pretty minuscule, the portal was ascending only thanks to the content quality and exclusive materials it had. This is a fine example of how a huge online project can be built from the ground up, the key to the success is this simple – you have to be into what you are doing, care about it and put some effort into it. Over the first year the site saw no other authors, nor did it feature any “borrowed” articles, digests, translations or something, as from day one it offered only very exclusive content.

Maria Sennikova took the lead on our English part when Mobile-Review.com only emerged – thanks to her efforts we got our first international readers. The very unique thing about our project is that we garner interest not only in Russia, but in other regions across the globe as well. Already after the first six months since the birth of the project, it was clear that Maria had a dilemma to resolve – either devote herself to Mobile-Review.com or keep working somewhere else. And at the very decisive moment when the future of the portal was in question, Maria gave her whole self to the project, so in many ways we enjoy the site as it is now thanks to her contribution.

The team of Mobile-Review.com was, if I may say so, handpicked – there have never been come-and-go people or those who didn’t care about what they were doing. One of the first authors to get onboard was Sergey Potresov – his biting and sarcastic articles and twisted headlines have become the trademark style of our Carriers section. Some hate it, some, on the other hand, love it. I still remember the letter written by one of our “readers” and sent from the domain of a big Moscow carrier, where he expressed why no one should write in such frivolous manner on a portal so respectable and known as ours. As I see it, Sergey along with our project and people involved in it have stood the test of time, which is the most valuable achievement.

Thinking of the years long gone, I would like to shed some light on those worries and complaints we all experienced. I remember one of my friends, who is still among the readers of Mobile-Review, asking me: “You sure you can handle this? One article a day? You think there will this many events?” Today we roll out around 4 articles a day (one or two for the English version), and I suppose soon enough we will feel the necessity to move beyond this. Sometimes I hear people claim that we are not as sharp as we used to be, and the portal has grown stale – actually, these gossips pop up every now and then. I guess, with the growing number of articles, and interesting ones, I dare add, in every section, even more intensive discussions in our forums and far beyond them, we can prove that we have been following the right course.

Back when Mobile-Review.com was only getting on its feet, many people in the mobile industry decided to sit on the fence and see which way it goes – they neither helped nor hassled. I’m thankful even for this attitude, but my heart gets really warm when I think of a group of people who offered all their help and support – it was never about budgets or investments, we have always been playing a fair game. Rather, these companies prioritized us in the queue for product samples, information and other things that didn’t confront with the interests of these companies.

It is not the first year when I have been offered bribes for writing some material in some particular vein or taking on the “right” way of looking at the things. Back then money would have done much good – we could have boosted our audience or solve some private matters. But, at the expense of misleading our readers, which is completely rotten. Never, be it outside Mobile-Review.com or within the project, Eldar Murtazin has never taken money or presents, feeding loyalty to alleged beliefs and viewpoints – no matter what envious persons have said or people who couldn’t tolerate a fair opinion on their device or favorite brand . It is remarkable that after five years, we no longer receive recommendations to change the way we look at the market – probably, in a larger sense due to the fact that all players on the market have come to know my beliefs and those of the rest of the team. Those who keep screaming and kicking everyone, accusing us of being reptile – well, they don’t seem like persons who have already met us, and I would really love to see them posting their “point of view” on our pages.

In one of our Russian podcasts I came across an interesting phenomenon. Everyone who joined us in different times and then settled down here, brought some unique touches to Mobile-Review.com. There is a bunch of ideas flying around, some have to wait until better times, and some materialize in a snap. I can’t even say how much Sfy contributed to keeping our site a good place to go and our community big and friendly – he has been the permanent head of our forum, its brain and soul, as well as the technician. Alexander has been around since day one, and together we have been through much. I don’t believe I can count the number of problems, rough situations and hard feelings that have been happening on our forum over all these years – one thing for sure, from time to time, one or more groups of not-quite-pleased users do emerge. As they suppose, it is only their point of view that matters, and if somebody happens to disagree, so be it, that’s a very solid reason to shut down the whole forum. Obviously, I’m slightly overcomplicating the things, but that’s the way it always develops. When we faced this type of situation for the first time, Sfy and I did a fantastic job trying to cool down both parties, but it never worked out and our efforts were a complete waste, people who really wanted to leave, well, they left. We came up with a solid and very straightforward strategy for these occasions and have been following it ever since – and it works just fine.

A whole lot of credit goes to our programmer, Anton Sokolov, who has been sticking with Mobile-Review from the very beginning, and just like all programmers, occasionally he couldn’t create something we needed or as fast as we needed. But all the pieces of code written by Anton worked and keep working now, moreover, when it all started his contribution was enormous and many things worked out only thanks to his hard work.

I would also like to write here the names of those people who have had a hand in the success of Mobile-Review.com – Vladimir Fokin, Dmitry Gorilovsky, Alexander Dembovsky, Anton Kotov, Olesya Rassoshkina, Viktor Dashkevich, Alexander Yakunin, Alexey Dorozin, Anton Spiridonov, Anja Rychkova, Maria Mitina, Oleg Kononosov, Dinis Yamalitdinov, Valentin Hohlov, Vera Kozlova, Irina Turina. Some time ago we parted with Alexey Murzin, who is currently a staff member on some other portal. I could easily go on and on, telling you about every person from the list above – all these guys (and girls) have proven themselves and I’m glad I can be in one team with them. It may seem like a cliche, but I’m really excited to read articles before they get to the main page, and my excitement has been only growing with every passing year. Regrettably I couldn’t mention every single contributor here – and I’m really sorry about that, I couldn’t squeeze everyone in this short message of mine.

I left Sergey Kuzmin out of this list on purpose – in roughly a year’s time, not only did he create Accessories section on our site, but also put up some really offbeat, yet amazingly interesting pieces. Sergey clearly demonstrates how one man can reshape a portal and make it so much more unpredictable and therefore exciting to read – a seasoned professional does make all the difference after all.

I can’t overlook the effort of Anton Kotov, who spent almost two years in the chair of Deputy Editor-In-Chief – over this time span he made some remarkable progress in journalism but in the end swayed towards marketing. He is one of the world’s best experts in Windows Mobile OS and WM-powered products – no further proof is required when you think of all these people and companies (developers and market players) that have thoroughly read his articles. But that’s not all – one of his last pieces, the one on Windows Mobile 6, came out six months before the official announcement of this OS and sparked a real flurry in Microsoft and on the market in general.

We could hardly find a proper replacement for Anton, but he offered such person himself – Artem Lutfullin. As they would say: “It is our man”. The early days of Artem’s being in the team were marked by insane activity and tons of articles, so it seemed he had been with us for a very long time. Previously he worked for “Svyaznoi”, a major distributor, which sort of provides us with manpower – Svetlana Leonova came from this company as well and is currently running our new project, TechnoSchool.ru.

I just couldn’t let this chance slip and overlook our staff members – such anniversaries are very rare, so nobody can blame me for mentioning the people who have been shaping up Mobile-Review.com. However, my story would be worthless if I didn’t say some words about You, our readers. After all these years, Mobile-Review.com has become a lifestyle for me, I have found new and very interesting friends, ideas for articles and life, established a whole lot of contacts. As far as I can see, we have managed to build a very friendly atmosphere, where you enjoy talking to each other not only about cell phones or portable gadgets, but personal affairs and your lives as well.

We have a tremendous audience – just think of it, 200.000 people from all over the globe come to visit us every day, which is a great responsibility and honor. And in return we are trying to live up to expectations and raise the bar in the field we are working in. Future holds a lot of all-round new and exciting things, and we have all we need to deliver new experiences, but the most important thing is that we are really into what we are doing.

Thank you for your support not only in the periods of our prosperity, but also when troubles are knocking on our door – like that DDoS attack we survived recently. We will do whatever it takes to pay you off for your loyalty and we will do our best to keep you entertained and content over at Mobile-Review.com.

Five years ago I wondered what the site would look like in five years’ time. Would it manage to climb all the way up to the top? Would it be interesting to me and everyone working for it? Would it make a statement in the industry? Back then, these were something more than just prosy questions – we couldn’t move our eyes off the web counter and would literally start jumping and running around every time we got a new visitor. At first there was a hundred, then a thousand, then 2500, 5000 and so it kept growing. But we have never been after numbers – we have always seen people as they are behind all these counters and statistics, that’s why we were doing our best for them in the past and keep doing the same thing these days. And today, as the Editor-in-Chief of Mobile-Review.com I can say that we have made it. With this anniversary we have stepped into a new world, which has yet to be explored – soon we will be launching many projects under Mobile-Review.com brand, both focused on mobile technologies and those that have little to do with them. We want to give you the opportunities to communicate, entertain yourself and have fun. I hope we will cope with this task. Thank you, our dear readers. They say, on such day we should only receive messages of congratulation, but now let me congratulate you as well. Thank you so much. In fact there is so much more for you in this day than for us - You have forged us this way and continue forging our site these days. Thank you for this.

Editor-in-Chief,
Mobile-Review.com
Eldar Murtazin

P.S. The entire Mobile-review.com team congratulates you with this anniversary!!! Thank you so much!

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