Record
Rossgram developers are on their official Telegram channels on February 9th. announced your app’s appearance on RuStore. At the same time, access to the beta test was open to only 10 thousand users. Android users can try the local social network by downloading the Rossgram client on RuStore, just like iPhone owners through the TestFlight app testing service.
Representatives of “Rossgram” reported that access to the recording was closed in just 15 hours – that’s how long it took to gain 10 thousand users. After that, the app disappeared from RuStore – presumably it was hidden so as not to upset those who downloaded it, those who will be denied access.
When opening “Rossgram” signed as “rossgram” in Latin on the desktop, users are greeted with a flat banner with the words “Time to go home”.
Presumably, this is how the developers invite Instagram users (the owner of Meta is recognized as extremist and banned in Russia) to their social networks, which the Rossgram team says is “not allowed”.
The registration process happens in a very strange way and it works every time. After the socialbites.ca correspondent entered his number, the social network failed several times. Next time you clicked the record button worked.
It is very important to remember the password at this stage – the application will often “kick” you from the profile.
When trying to recover the password by logging in, an error occurs and it is recommended to change the password by phone number – only after that the message “Exceeded maximum number of users” appears. It is not entirely clear how to recover the password and why then the possibility of alias recovery is offered.
Application
On the homepage, users are greeted by the main feed. There are no ads or any recommendations in it – just your posts and posts from people you follow.
You can see right away that Rossgram does not provide the possibility of publishing Stories, which is a popular format on such social networks, at least at this stage. In the native solution, there is no way to upload videos, just photos, as in Instagram from the 2010s.
The navigation bar has five tabs: “Publish”, “Suggestions”, “Create”, “Actions” and “Profile” – all items are cleanly copied from Instagram. Only, unlike the Western service, there is no recommendation algorithm here – posts are randomly displayed to the user. A special section called “Setting Interests” in the profile settings can help you find relevant content. The choice of genres, of course, is more tedious – the same “Technology”, “Tools”, etc. At the same time, the socialbites.ca correspondent, after noting his interests, did not see any changes in the recommendations section.
Publishing is also very tedious – the built-in editor only allows you to rotate and crop the picture, as well as choose the angle of inclination. At least at this stage it is impossible to apply any filters.
Rossgram has a few things the app is commendable for. For example, you don’t need to subscribe to anyone to get the first subscribers and likes. For example, a few minutes after registration, more than 20 users subscribed to the socialbites.ca correspondent, and its first broadcast received a like. But mostly these pages belong to groups like Humor. Jokes. Jokes”, “Memes” and “Orenburg News”, but most likely they just subscribe and put likes on their profile to attract attention.
Another advantage of Rossgram is the ability to export Instagram posts to the local social network. To do this, you need to contact technical support, where they will tell you everything in detail and even give a video instruction made “on the laptop”: this is a simple screen recording recorded on an iPhone. the best sound But everything is clear and understandable.
Another funny observation – “How to address you?”, where in the profile settings you can specify “Dear”, “Dear” or “I prefer not to say”. It is worth noting this original way of indicating gender.
Among the shortcomings, the slow speed of posting photos and the absence of any requirements and standards for photos can be distinguished – users can upload photos in 1:1, 4:3 and 16:9 format, which creates a kind of “chaos” in the feed.
The application provides a button “Share post”. However, if the user sends the received link to their friends instead of the posted photo, they will see the “Invalid Dynamic Link” error.
To replace Instagram?
Rossgram’s developers loudly declared themselves, promising to provide the Russians with an alternative to the “impossible gram”, but at this stage this did not happen.
It is more convenient to create your own channel in Telegram, replace Instagram than what the authors of this social network offer.
Moreover, shortly after Instagram was blocked in Russia, two more interesting alternatives began to work – Now and Sadnogram. First, it completely copies the functionality of the Western social network and successfully copies, unlike the same Rossgram. In the case of “Grustnogram” it has its own feature that makes this social network unique – “depressed soul”, a black and white filter and the slogan “Social network for sad”.