Used, abused and refused: the media amicably complained about the behavior of Yandex Zen

Several popular publications at once, including the Readovka telegram channel and the Kommersant newspaper, sharply criticized the Yandex Zen (Yandex. Dzen) media platform, which literally collapsed traffic to even the most popular publications some time ago, without prior warning. The saddest thing is that it was on the materials of these publications that the platform gained both popularity and, of course, money.

Experts note that Zen politics began to change two years ago, when it began to switch from text format to video, and in the summer this transition was completed completely. Without a doubt, this happened under the influence of the youth social network Tik-Tok, however, Zen's audience remained the same - 50+.

And here is the result: today the media complained about a drop in traffic from Zen two or three times.

It is significant that the Zen support service remained completely indifferent to the repeated complaints of journalists, as well as the fact that now all traffic on this platform is collected exclusively by “yellow” publications. Moreover, the platform, as it were, accidentally blocks publications, delaying their entry into the news feed, and then apologizes when the traffic has already been lost.

But Zen advises to write "better and more", as well as switch to the video format, promising to create a loyalty program, that is, to make the publications work for themselves, keeping the audience in their channels, not allowing transitions to the sites of the publications.

Publisher Andrey Konyaev commented on this recommendation:

“Zen no longer needs media, he has bloggers, and advice to develop short videos can be compared to Marie Antoinette’s advice to eat pastries when there is no bread. Video production is expensive and the exhaust is incomprehensible. Facebook advised this about 10 years ago, and then it turned out that it inflated video views..."

Readers were very harsh on Zen's behavior:

- I had a channel and a friend had three, about 5-9 thousand rubles a week dripped, while spending about two hours on content creation. This year, everything was blocked for him without explaining the reasons, and my traffic dropped and, at a certain moment, subscribers began to disappear, who later wrote that they unsubscribed, although they did nothing. Zen explained everything very simply - "write more, if you unsubscribe, it means you no longer like it."

- Everything is just like that. They almost do not respond to requests, they block. Generally it has deteriorated, but there are still interesting authors and articles. Unfortunately, there are no analogues to Zen.

Zen used to be interesting when they were in text format. I find it more convenient to read than watch a video. Now I have not been sitting on Zen for a long time.

- So it is with YMarket, a similar situation. He passes all trading platforms through himself, acting as the main seller. At least that's how it seemed to me.

“Zen no longer needs media, he has bloggers, and advice to develop short videos can be compared to Marie Antoinette’s advice to eat pastries when there is no bread. Video production is expensive and the exhaust is incomprehensible. Facebook advised this about 10 years ago, and then it turned out that it inflated video views ... "