World's First Live Online AI Powered Reality Show Sets World Record and Draws 219 Million Views on VK

MOSCOW, November 27, 2017 /PRNewswire/ --

Mail.Ru Group Limited (MAIL.IL, hereinafter referred as "the Company" or "the Group"), one of the largest Internet companies in the Russian-speaking Internet market, today announces that VK, Russia's largest communication platform and one of the largest social platforms globally, has become the first social network to stream the world's only 24/7 live digital AI reality show. "Public Games" was fully digital and available only as a VK Live video stream. The show started on October 8 ended with a grand finale on November 25.

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"Public Games" was a reality show where 28 participants from 3 different countries lived in a closed space equipped with 50 cameras from the 9th of October to the 25th of November. The show was organized by the popular VK communities (or "public" in Russian) "MDK", "Palata №6", "Evil Inc." and "Borsch".

Some relevant information:

• Every day, more than a million unique viewers continuously watched the broadcast.
• Average broadcast viewing time per week was more than an hour per user.
• Viewers left 2 million comments online.
• For the first time ever, an artificial intelligence based system was running the show. The system used face recognition technology and in real time analyzed the live stream, deciding, with the help of a neural network, who were the least active participants. Those participants were then voted upon by the viewers with the losers leaving the show.
• Participants went through 25 challenges in 4 battle zones over the period of the show.
• The participants for each community's team were chosen with help of VK chatbots. In all, about 279,000 participant applications were submitted.
• The show is produced by Mastiff, a Banijay Russian affiliate and Divico, a Russian digital production company.

The show was streamed online live in 4 participating communities attracting 96.7 million views and became one of the most popular non-eSports live streams ever globally. All "Public Games" videos including live stream and daily pre-recorded highlights drew 219 million views from 33 million users.

About Mail.Ru Group 

Mail.Ru Group, international brand My.com (MAIL.IL, listed since November 5, 2010) is the largest internet business in Russia in terms of mobile daily audience (Mediascope Mobile Index, population aged 12-64 in the cities 100,000+, August 2017, Russia).

In line with the communitainment (communication plus entertainment) strategy, the company is developing an integrated communications and entertainment platform. The company owns Russia's leading email service and one of Russia's largest internet portals, Mail.Ru. The company operates three of the major Russian language social networks, VKontakte (VK), Odnoklassniki (OK) and Moi Mir (My World), and Russia's largest online games, including such gaming titles as Warface, Armored Warfare, Skyforge and Perfect World. The сompany's portfolio also includes a leading OpenStreetMap-based offline mobile maps and navigation service MAPS.ME, auto classifieds service Am.ru, instant messaging services ICQ, Agent Mail.Ru and TamTam, a mobile location based marketplace Youla, and a ride-sharing service BeepCar.