VK: News (formerly Yandex.News)

2022

Closing the transaction for the sale of the platform "News" VK

September 12, 2022 VK announced the closure of the acquisition from Yandex content platforms Zen and news. More. here

Signing of binding agreements on the purchase of VK services Yandex.Novosti and Yandex.Zen

The companies VK Yandex also announced TAdviser the signing of binding documents on the transaction on August 23, 2022. According to its terms, VK will become the owner of content the platforms "Zen" and Novosti and will transfer to Yandex a service for the delivery of finished food and food, Delivery Club which VK consolidates during the restructuring - Holding O2O a joint venture of VK and. " "Sberbank

It is planned to close the deal by the end of 2022 after receiving a number of regulatory approvals. After the completion of the transaction, VK will receive the rights to the technologies and trademarks of the Zen and Novosti services.

After the deal closes, the Zen and Novosti services will become available on the dzen.ru portal, where other services and the Yandex search bar will also be posted. At the same time, Zen will retain the current content monetization tools for authors, and platform users will be able to choose where it is more convenient for them to read and watch content: on the portal dzen.ru from the desktop version or in the Zena mobile application, VK said.

"Creating and developing content services that are comfortable for users is the main strategic task of VK. Zen is a popular platform among millions of people, one of the market leaders with huge development potential. As a result of integration with VK, Zen authors will have the opportunity to realize themselves in new formats and access to a new audience. Users will receive even more high-quality entertainment and educational content, "said Vladimir Kiriyenko, CEO of VK (Russia).

According to him, the Zena team will be given the opportunity to develop independently, which will allow the service to quickly bring new content products to the market and optimize existing ones, increasing its audience.

VK buys Yandex.Novosti and Yandex.Zen

On April 28, 2022 , VK Holding announced the purchase of Yandex.News news aggregation service and Yandex.Zen recommendation platform from Yandex. The value and other parameters of the transaction are not disclosed. In particular, it is unclear how the services will continue their work, whether they will remain on the main page of Yandex or change.

According to the press service of VK, by April 28, 2022, agreements were signed on the main terms of the transaction with Yandex. To complete the transaction, the parties will have to receive all the necessary approvals from corporate and regulatory bodies, including the Federal Antimonopoly Service (FAS), VK added.

VK will belong to Yandex.News and Yandex.Zen

On March 15, 2022, RBC, citing sources, announced the company's intention to sell its Yandex.Novosti and Yandex.Zen services. The interlocutors of the publication called the VK holding the main contender for services, but clarified that negotiations were conducted with other applicants.

After that, representatives of the holding confirmed the possibility of selling Yandex.Zen and Yandex.Novosti services. Then the company explained that it would like to focus on the development of its other technology enterprises and products, including search, advertising, self-driving and cloud technologies, as well as taxi ordering services, e-commerce, video/audio and streaming.

One of RBC's sources, familiar with the discussion of the issue, said in mid-April 2022 that the idea to sell Yandex.News and Yandex.Zen initially arose four to five years ago, and in the fall of 2021 they "returned to this issue again." The interlocutor named the following as the reason for the possible sale of services: Yandex wants to be a technological company, and Yandex.Zen is developing more towards social networks. " As for Yandex.News, according to the interlocutor, it causes "a lot of criticism from all sides^[1]

2021

Plan to launch media payments for news use

On July 12, 2021, it became known about Yandex's decision to pay the media for content in Yandex.News. The company will share advertising revenue with partners whose materials are included in the news digest.

According to a RBC source in the media market, Yandex told its partners about plans to test digests in the spring of 2021. The company intends to create a text from news excerpts from different media so that the reader does not need to follow the link to the source, the source explained. In order for publishers to be interested in this, the company wants to offer monetization

We are ready, together with partners, to make new formats for presenting information and share with them the revenues that the Yandex.News service receives  RBC , "said Andrei Styskin, head of Yandex's Search, Advertising and Cloud Services business group, whose area of ​ ​ responsibility includes the Yandex.Novosti service.

Yandex begins to pay the media for content in Yandex.News

The top manager did not disclose the share of revenue that the aggregator will transfer to publishers. He sees the benefit of media in maintaining audience loyalty. In turn, the presence of two user scenarios will create additional value for readers who find out the news on the service.

Styskin stressed that "this is not an attraction in which money is simply distributed." According to him, " as a result of such integrations, there is additional value for users"^[2] for^[3].

Now we see that the consumption of information is moving, for example, to Telegram: a lot of people receive current short updates, because they are subscribed to a large number of Telegram channels. We see two user scenarios: to study everything in detail or immediately find out the essence - and we want to give users a choice within the service , "he said.

Number of partners - more than 3 thousand media resources

By July 2021, Yandex.News partners are more than 3 thousand media resources.

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