They received new design, where there is no longer a side menu, a new section with a feed of recommendations, and in the future the company is going to launch a platform for creating longreads within the social network. spent a day with the new application and talked with company representatives about how everything will work now.
On the web version of the social network, the news feed already had a “Recommendations” section, but its content was not synchronized with the search tab in the application, where the new algorithm works. In addition, the content in the tab is visually grouped: photos and videos are tiled, records with long texts take up more space and stand out.
About half of the entries you can immediately tell how they got into the recommendations - mainly because they were liked or commented on by friends. The other half gets in in an unknown way: the algorithm in the top recommendations showed me an unfunny (although kind of humorous) video of an unknown girl with 43 views and one like, not even from a friend.
There are also many short text entries in the feed, sometimes there are publications of celebrities with verified profiles (I used Ruslan Sokolovsky and Ilya Varlamov). In general, the recommendations leave the impression of being a more consumable tool than the newsfeed or video section. Due to the removed optional this case interface elements, the content has moved forward and become more tidy. By clicking on the card, you can go to the entry itself - the entire familiar interface and a button for a quick subscription will be available there.
VKontakte calls its algorithm "Prometheus" (in ancient Greek myths, it brought fire to people): when a user's post gets into the recommendations, he gets a label in the form of a flame on his page. So it will be possible to understand where the flow of new comments and likes came from.
But not only Prometheus works in the recommendations feed, which is looking for something new and supports little-known bloggers. There are two more types of selected content: the first is personal recommendations based on the user's social graph, and the second is trends common to VKontakte.
Representatives of VKontakte said that Prometheus is able to search for users similar to others. If the social network knows that the artist Duran is popular with users, it will use the data collected about their interests to look for bloggers similar to him.
At the same time, the company promises that it will fight plagiarists who do not produce their own content, but earn popularity by stealing it from others. The algorithm will look for the original and try to show exactly it, and we are talking about all media - text, pictures and videos, explains Sergey Paranko, who develops the social network's media platform: “If someone took someone else's content and started to climb on it, then we will always check - and whether this content has been uploaded by someone before.
In early September, the leading designer of VKontakte, Pavel Knyazev, announced an imminent redesign of mobile applications. In the current form of the application, only half of what was promised has been implemented: the likes have become red (they look much juicier, it is more pleasant to press), the buttons have become more round, many icons have been redrawn and, most importantly, the application no longer has a side menu - there are only five buttons below.
Visually, this is unusual: the sections of the side menu are now under the fifth button, and music and video are also hidden there: when listening to music, you will have to return to this tab in order to switch tracks. The design of the audio player is still the same, and there are still no recommendations in the video section that appeared on the desktop back in 2015 - now all recommendations are only in the search tab.
The news feed is very reminiscent of a combination of Facebook and Instagram: on the one hand, there is a variety of “heavy” content, the delivery of which is controlled by an algorithm. On the other hand, history and fast access to their creation by swipe to the right. But now VKontakte has not one, but two algorithmic feeds in adjacent tabs: news and recommendations.
It sounds difficult, especially since full synchronization with the desktop mobile version does not imply - neither in working methods, nor in visual design. Andrey Rogozov, managing director of VKontakte, explains: the web has long gone by the wayside, mobile platforms are ahead, and user patterns on them are very different.
So far, VKontakte has only the old possibilities for creating posts - writing text posts, taking photos, videos and stories with masks. But before the end of 2017, the social network promises to launch a platform for creating longreads that will be "correctly displayed on all devices."
Paranko explained that the platform for longreads is essentially an editor of long posts with various attachments, which will allow publishing complex formats within the social network. Previously, VKontakte publics used wiki markup for this, but it will most likely sink into the past - it will not be turned off, but will not be developed. According to the description, the platform will resemble what Medium, Facebook and Telegram already have.
Medium has a catalog of interesting articles, Facebook has a richer text layout tool, and Telegram has a primitive editor for publishing any large materials with support for fast loading via Instant View. VKontakte says they will support the AMP initiative (this standard is used by Google and Twitter) for faster loading of their materials, including those embedded on external sites.
According to the company's idea, reading external materials and those published through the platform should not be any different for the user - moreover, the "smart" feed will rank such entries higher than regular links, since the content will load faster for the user. According to VKontakte statistics, 85% of users switched to the smart feed during the year of its operation.
How correct the display will be on all devices is still a question. A few years ago, as part of a similar initiative for media, VKontakte introduced large cards for links to media materials and other external sites - but the social network application for the iPad still does not know how to display them correctly.
Back in August 2014, representatives of VKontakte during a special event announced plans to release a separate messenger for messaging. These plans were repeatedly repeated by sources in the media until the end of 2016, until the question “When will VKontakte release the messenger” finally became a meme.
Informally, representatives of the social network have long recognized that the need for a separate messenger has disappeared. Now this is enshrined in the official press releases of the company: it began to separately count the audience of the “built-in messenger VKontakte” - according to the latest data, this is 82 million people a month. 97 million people use the social network every day.
Rapid redesign of mobile applications and iOS. First concept updates appearance published in the official blog "VKontakte", in which, among other things, Knyazev also spoke about the work of designers in the company.
In clients and iOS, the tabbar will again appear - a single navigation bar with tabs at the bottom of the screen, covering the main functionality. By the way, the designers of the social network abandoned it in 2012. In the new design vision, the tabbar includes the main sections of VKontakte: News, Search and Recommendations, Messages, Notifications, and the user menu. The side menu, judging by the published screenshots, will be completely removed in the redesign of applications.
In addition to the radically new user interface, the designers of VKontakte with the upcoming update of the appearance will add several functional innovations. In the Search & Recommendations section, rectangular stories of nearby users will appear, as well as a feed of potentially interesting entries from new authors. The lead designer at VKontakte describes the new section as "such a sticky thing, where you can find something of high quality and unfamiliar, taking into account personal preferences." A view counter will be introduced in the news feed (now it is displayed only when the post is opened), and the likes will turn red.
When will the updated
Today, 09/27/2017, I was surprised to find that on my iPhone, and on other phones with the Android OS, it became possible to update . The update of Mobile VK has to be taken for granted, a sharp transition to a new look.
Quick navigation:
At first glance, very interesting, something new! But after a few seconds, when I could not find the “Messages” tab in the menu, I was confused and I remembered all these crappy services from mail ru. Of course, VK is no longer Pavel Durov. A wave of indignation swept through my head with slogans like: “Bring Durov back!” ...
And there really is good, no matter how anyone says anything. After all, everything new is always perceived with hostility.
All the most important functions are placed on the bottom panel, the rest of the menu items are now in the lower right corner. With such an interface, it has really become more convenient and, for example, you can get to messages in 1 click.
Now owners of smartphones with big screen, it will be much more convenient to use the application. Previously, the menu button was at the top and in order to use it, you needed a second hand or incredible tricks with one.
Now this very menu is at the bottom and you can easily click it with your thumb.
Now all the most important, friends, likes and reposts, everything is collected in one paragraph. There are also notification settings, now you can perform fine tuning notifications, for yourself. Leave only what is really important to you.
The new version uses a single input field for search, here you can find a person, group, records, videos and music. The search has become more interactive, to the fore the algorithm displays information based on the user's preferences.
To disable safe search, you still need to switch in the browser (See).
As soon as I put the first one, I noticed that it turned red, it immediately reminded me of Instagram. Previously, when pressed, it acquired a darker, blue color. What I immediately liked was the very neatly executed elements under the news, likes, messages, and views. Now they look more harmonious and stylish.
By the way, Vkontakte music now has a listening limit, how to get around this innovation (See).
Now it is too early to give a definite answer, it takes time and this time can make us get used to the new design and functionality. Welcome pictures telling about new features are made in a disgusting style, where that simple design got used to it. Now just add a beige background and it will be ala Odnoklassniki ...
Surely in the near future there will be a lot of controversy, for better or worse, but we will have to shove a new update, redesign 2017.
As for the changes, at first glance, you can see that the messaging function has been moved from the main menu to a separate lower tray icon, reminded WhatsApp. Of course, if you take all the changes, then VK has become more like Facebook and a little like Instagram.
Hi all. Did you know that since April 1, 2016, VKontakte has released an updated version? Wasn't it an April Fool's joke? Let's figure it out together...
So. Back in April of this year, on the official VKontakte blog, a post was published that VK was introducing a new design. All in the same style, blue and white. But the design itself looks different ...
At first, the update was not available to everyone, and it was tested for some time so that users could evaluate the innovations, and specialists from the contact, meanwhile, collect the necessary information from analytics, what and how the user does, in order to understand how convenient the new template and site functionality is.
After a while, a number of accounts had the opportunity to switch to new version, by submitting an application through a special link, which, as they say, appears to the left of the main menu, under the link My settings:
join testing
use the new version of the site as default
The same thing was on the official VKontakte blog, a special button was available:
Everything seems to be simple! Yes, just one BUT...
Update VK to a new version was not available to everyone, but to a limited number of users. That is social network, has opened or periodically opens such an opportunity so that people can join testing. And in total, such an opportunity was for 1 million accounts. And those who managed to apply, they were able to test. The rest are promised that it will be later and for everyone!
That is, it turns out that VK has not yet been completely updated, and BETA is underway - TESTING.
Therefore, expect the final release.
Or maybe you have upgraded? Write below in the comments, so about!
In the meantime, there is so much talk around this process that everyone is in a hurry to declare how he updated VK on the computer.
So, some write that the link is available. And others don't succeed. And those who were able to apply, then again, waited for a final decision for more than 2 weeks. In response, an official response comes from the VK support service, and the updated version becomes available.
In general, everything is not so simple yet. Although you may succeed quickly, most will have to wait for the final release.
As you can see, some manage to update VK, while others do not! It's true that everyone is different...
Go to social blog network, and read the following:
Work on a new design has been carried out over the past year and a half. We carefully studied, thought over and created anew each element. Today we take the next step and move to new level site development to make it more modern.
The main principle of the new design of VKontakte is that it looks similar and recognizable on all devices. It is easy for the website user to find desired section in the mobile app and vice versa.
We increased the screen width and fonts, got rid of unnecessary details and made the site easier to read. More space for new useful features. We also updated left menu: shortened the names of the items, added icons and moved the most popular sections to the top - News and Messages.
The display of each element has been redesigned. Entries in the tape have become more noticeable. News lists are now in a separate block on the right, along with search and comments. Turning on the smart news feed has become easier - switching to the “Interesting first” mode is located immediately below this block.
The message section has been rewritten from scratch. In the updated interface, we have placed the list of recent conversations and the current open chat on the same screen. Switching between conversations and reacting to new messages has become easier. Unread messages are marked with a blue dot that disappears after reading, and the online status is marked with a green dot.
Likes, friend requests, mentions, friends' birthdays and other events are collected in a new notification section. On the pages of people and communities, you can now subscribe to notifications of new posts so as not to miss important news. When a new event appears, a red indicator will appear at the “bell” icon in the site header.
Photos in albums and when browsing all photos have become larger and are displayed in a beautiful magazine layout. The photo viewer is oriented horizontally to make better use of the widescreen space. Comments are displayed to the right of the photo: you no longer need to scroll down the screen to view photos and see comments on them at the same time.
The changes affected every interface of the site without exception. The sections that tell about VKontakte have also been updated: “About the Company”, “Products” and “VKontakte Work”. We have also relaunched our own blog. Here the VKontakte team will share news about products and innovations.
Today we are launching a new design in test mode for a limited audience. Gradually it will become available to everyone.
