Zen
Type of site
Recommendation system
Available inRussian languages
Founded2015
OwnerVK
Created byYandex
Key peopleAnton Frolov (CEO)
Rinat Nizamov (EIC)
Vitaly Grigorash (CPO)
URLdzen.ru
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
Users59 million per month[1]
Current statusActive

Zen (Russian: Дзéн) is a personal recommendations service created by Yandex that uses machine learning technology.[2][3][4][5]

In September 2022, Yandex sold the service to VK.[6]

Zen creates a feed of content that automatically adjusts to the interests of a user.[7] The selection of content is based on the analysis of browsing history, user-specified preferences, location, time of day and other factors.[8][9]

The average monthly site traffic is around 59 million people.[1]

Technology

Zen is an example of the implementation of a specialized artificial intelligence technology.[10][11][12]

To analyze the interests and preferences of users, Yandex used information about sites that have been visited, as well as user-specified interests.[13]

The system analyzes the user's favorite sites and other behaviors with the aim of creating a unique model of the user's preferences.[14] With an increasing amount of data about the user, the system can offer the user more relevant and topical content,[14] including content from sources unfamiliar to the user.[15] Zen adapts to the changing interests of the user.[16] For example, if a user begins to read about architecture, content on this subject will appear in their content feed more often.[17][18]

Prediction of user interest by using collaborative filtering[9]

Zen belong to the “Discovery” technology category (services and apps that use artificial intelligence to adapt to a user).[19][20][21]

The technology that underlies Zen was adapted by Yandex and CERN for use in the Large Hadron Collider. It is used to provide in-depth analysis of the results of physics experiments taking place at the LHС.[22][23]

Media platform

In 2017, Yandex announced the launch of a platform that allows companies and independent authors to publish media content (articles, photos, videos) directly to Zen.[24] The platform also allows popular authors to earn money by using micropayment channels and ads.[24][25][26]

In August 2021, the "Videos" section was launched in Zen. It contains videos up to 1 minute long created by Zen bloggers.[27]

In 2021, the company paid out over 2 billion rubles to authors of publications.[28]

Prior to the launch of the platform, Zen feeds consisted only of publications selected from publicly available sources.[29]

After buying Zen, VK began to implement changes. In January 2023, the limit on uploaded videos was increased from 10 GB to 30 GB.[30] In February 2023, users got an opportunity to withdraw money through the VK Pay service.[31]

History

In 1997, Yandex began research into natural language processing, machine learning and recommendation systems.[32] In 2009, the proprietary machine learning algorithm MatrixNet was developed by Yandex, becoming one of the key components that Zen functions on.[9] The first Yandex service to introduce the use of recommendation technology was Yandex.Music, which was launched in September 2014.[33] This technology was then implemented in Yandex.Market and Yandex.Radio.[33]

In June 2015, a beta version of Zen became available.[33][34][35] At first, the Zen content feed showed only content from the media, and the service was only available to the 5% of users of Yandex Browser on Android that had registered a Yandex account.[33] Prior to this, Zen was available in an experimental form on the webpage zen.yandex.ru.[9][36]

In the following months, other types of content were added to Zen, such as image galleries, articles, blogs, forums, videos from YouTube, etc.[37][9][38]

In 2017, Zen launched Narratives, a special content format for mobile devices. Narrative is a set of slides with texts, photos, videos and GIFs. In January 2018, the format became available to Zen authors.[39]

In August 2022, VK announced the purchase of Zen and Zen News. The deal was closed on September 12, 2022.[40]

Management

The head of the Zen service is Anton Frolov.[41]

Finances

The platform has ad-based business model. In September 2017, Zen's revenue amounted to 200 million rubles.[42] In 2020, the planned revenue amounted to 13.1 billion rubles. According to the results of the fourth quarter of 2021, the planned revenue amounted to 18.9 billion rubles.[43]

Competitors

After the release of Zen, several major companies also announced personal recommendation services. In May 2016, Mail.Ru Group presented a similar project called Likemore, which offers users content from VK (VKontakte) social media groups.[44][45] In August 2016, Google launched a test version of a similar service Google Discover that recommends news articles.[44][46][47] Apple and Facebook have also launched news services with similar functionality.[48] In 2019, VK launched a similar service named "Pulse". It is assumed that VK will merge Pulse and purchased Zen.[49][50]

References

  1. 1 2 "«Яндекс.Дзен» — это 60 млн пользователей, которые готовы у вас покупать. Показываю пользу для бизнеса в цифрах" (in Russian). VC. 2022-03-16. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  2. ↑ "Personal recommendations Zen earned in Yandex.Browser on iPad - ActualApple.com". actualapple.com. Archived from the original on 2017-02-23. Retrieved 2017-04-07.
  3. ↑ "Share Market Updates - Stock Trading News, Stock Newsletter, Stock Photos". sharemarketupdates.com. Archived from the original on 2016-10-19. Retrieved 2017-04-07.
  4. ↑ Symington, Steve (2 August 2016). "Yandex Gains Share on Android in Another Decent Quarter".
  5. ↑ Barton, James (12 October 2016). "Emerging markets telecom news and analysis - Developing Telecoms". Developing Telecoms.
  6. ↑ "Yandex's sale of News and Zen to VK completes". Techcrunch. 2022-09-12. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  7. ↑ ""Яндекс" запустил новостной агрегатор "Дзен"". www.dp.ru.
  8. ↑ "Яндекс.Дзен".
  9. 1 2 3 4 5 "Будущее браузеров и искусственный интеллект. Дзен в Яндекс.Браузере - PCNEWS.RU". pcnews.ru.
  10. ↑ "Искусственный интеллект в "Яндекс.Браузере" поможет осуществлять поиск - ГосИндекс". gosindex.ru.
  11. ↑ ""Яндекс" выпустил браузер с рекомендательным сервисом "Дзен"". ftimes.ru. Archived from the original on 2017-04-08. Retrieved 2017-04-07.
  12. ↑ "Yandex Zen запустил новый формат для публикаций новостей". teleconom.ru. 2 September 2021.
  13. ↑ "Будущее браузеров и искусственный интеллект. Дзен в Яндекс.Браузере".
  14. 1 2 "Как включить Яндекс Дзен на компьютере в браузере". sdelaicomp.ru. 13 September 2016.
  15. ↑ AppCompass (16 August 2016). "Яндекс тестирует ленту Дзен в бета-версии своего браузера для iPad". Archived from the original on 26 March 2017. Retrieved 7 April 2017.
  16. ↑ "Искусственный интеллект в России. Достижения и основные направления развития - iot.ru Новости Интернета вещей". iot.ru.
  17. ↑ Rbc.ua. ""Яндекс" выпустил браузер с персональной лентой рекомендаций".
  18. ↑ ""Яндекс" внедрил в свой браузер искусственный интеллект. Новости - Россия. Metro". www.metronews.ru. 8 June 2016.
  19. ↑ Editorial, Reuters. "${Instrument_CompanyName} ${Instrument_Ric} Company Profile Reuters.com". U.S. {{cite web}}: |first= has generic name (help)
  20. ↑ "The Press Telegraph". presstelegraph.com. Archived from the original on 2016-10-13. Retrieved 2017-04-07.
  21. ↑ "The Press Telegraph". presstelegraph.com. Archived from the original on 2016-10-02. Retrieved 2017-04-07.
  22. ↑ "CERN boosts its search for antimatter with Yandex's MatrixNet search engine tech - ExtremeTech". 1 February 2013.
  23. ↑ "Yandex bakes AI into smartphones to start OTT fightback".
  24. 1 2 ""Яндекс" запустил платформу для создания контента независимыми авторами". 30 May 2017.
  25. ↑ ""Яндекс" раздаст $1 млн лучшим авторам контента на новой платформе "Яндекс.Дзена" - Rusbase".
  26. ↑ ""Яндекс" запустил блог-платформу для издателей и брендов".
  27. ↑ "«Яндекс» запустил в «Дзене» аналог TikTok — ленту с короткими видео" (in Russian). VC. 2021-08-05. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  28. ↑ "«Яндекс.Дзен» выплатил авторам постов больше 2 млрд рублей в 2021 году" (in Russian). VC. 2021-12-27. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  29. ↑ ""Яндекс.Дзен" превратили в платформу для создания контента с возможностью монетизации".
  30. ↑ "В Дзене увеличен лимит на загружаемые видео" (in Russian). VC. 2023-12-31. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  31. ↑ "Дзен позволил авторам выводить доход от монетизации через VK Pay" (in Russian). VC. 2023-02-02. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  32. ↑ Lunden, Ingrid. "Yandex woos smartphone makers with AI, browser and launcher partnership programs".
  33. 1 2 3 4 Panphilov, Konstantin (9 June 2015). ""Яндекс" запустил тестовую версию рекомендательного сервиса для читателей СМИ". Archived from the original on 15 February 2017. Retrieved 7 April 2017.
  34. ↑ "В Google Chrome появятся рекомендации". webmasters.ru.
  35. ↑ Inc., TV Rain (10 June 2015). ""Яндекс" запустил агрегатор публикаций "Дзен"". {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  36. ↑ ""Яндекс" официально запустил "Дзен"". 8 June 2016.
  37. ↑ ""Яндекс" запустил сервис персональных рекомендаций статей "Дзен" — Meduza".
  38. ↑ "Stocks in the Spotlight: Endeavour Silver Corp. (EXK), Baker Hughes Incorporated (BHI), Yandex N.V. (YNDX) | istreetwire". istreetwire.com. Archived from the original on 2016-07-18.
  39. ↑ "Яндекс.Дзен о нарративах: мы создали микроформат с замашками лонгридов" (in Russian). Cossa. 2018-02-16. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  40. ↑ "«Яндекс» и VK обменялись активами. Главное" (in Russian). РБК. 2022-09-23. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  41. ↑ "Руководителем "Яндекс.Дзена" станет Антон Фролов" (in Russian). TASS. 2021-10-12. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  42. ↑ "22 млн пользователей в день и потенциальные 18,9 млрд рублей выручки в год: что получит VK после покупки «Дзена»" (in Russian). VC. 2021-10-12. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  43. ↑ "22 млн пользователей в день и потенциальные 18,9 млрд рублей выручки в год: что получит VK после покупки «Дзена»" (in Russian). RBC. 2022-03-15. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  44. 1 2 Frolov, Andrey (18 August 2016). "Google представила аналог рекомендующего статьи "Яндекс.Дзена" в мобильном браузере Chrome". vc.ru.
  45. ↑ "Business geek. Видеозвонки в WhatsApp, закрытие "Мегамозга" и кинобизнес Nintendo".
  46. ↑ "Google Now-powered New Tab Page is coming to Chrome". 17 August 2016.
  47. ↑ "Google тестирует рекомендации на вкладках в Chrome для Android".
  48. ↑ Inc., TV Rain (11 June 2015). "Apple запустит новостной сервис Apple News". {{cite web}}: |last= has generic name (help)
  49. ↑ "Платформа для блогеров «Пульс» в VK стала доступна всем пользователям" (in Russian). RB. 2022-02-09. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
  50. ↑ "Эксперты: VK может интегрировать "Дзен" и "Новости" в сообщества "ВКонтакте" и "Пульс"" (in Russian). TASS. 2022-06-30. Retrieved 2023-02-09.
This article is issued from Wikipedia. The text is licensed under Creative Commons - Attribution - Sharealike. Additional terms may apply for the media files.