I am currently at the IIHF ice hockey world championships in Quebec and there couldn’t be better gift for me as a journalist which anyone could give me than today’s release of Czech version of Google Translator. Google now allows me (and anyone else too;) to have text or webpage translated from 22 languages to Czech. Which is by my opinion the greatest achievment of Czech Google team this year so far.
Now I can read ice hockey news even in such a obscure languages as Finnish, Swedish and Italian (apart from Arabic or Hindu, which I could rarely use in writing about ice hockey:).
I have already used it for brief translation from Swedish and Russian - despite is could seem that Russian version as a Slavic language should make better resluts than Swedish, after consultation with native Swedish speaker the Swedish version gets better translation so far.
BTW, if you are interested about my stay in Quebec, you can check some pictures I have at Flickr or, if interested in Czech hockey talks, see our hockey blog at blog.onlajny.cz
Published at May 9th, 2008 under
dot CZ
As various Czech and Polish sources reports, polish venture fund MCI investment, who already possesses several shares among Czech companies (read more in this older spot), bought 50,11% shares of Invia.cz, largest Czech online travel retailer. Invia sold travel services for over than 50 mil. euro in 2007 with profit of 400 000 euro, which gives them largest market share in the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Invia is active also in Hungary and Romania.
MCI owns similar market leader in Poland at the moment, Travelplanet.pl. As press release announces, they haven’t plans to join their activities in the near future, but with two market leaders on board there is a clear aim to build the strongest online travel retailer in the region with expected sales of 250 mil. euro a year.
Travelplanet.pl is already listed on Warsaw stock exchange (WGP) and MCI plans to make an IPO of Invia.cz over there in 2009. At this moment, next to MCI former three founders of Invia and Swiss VC fund Centralway possesses the rest of the shares.
Price for the majority hasn’t been disclosed, but it was confirmed that is above 2,9 mil. euro, according to Ondrej Bartos, Czech investment director of MCI. One of the Invia founders Radek Stavinoha told Lupa.cz in the interview last June that owners ask about 8 mil. euro for the whole company. This sets the price somewhere between 3 and 8 mil. euro, which is quite a large range, but most probably they got no more than 4 mil. euro.
Published at April 24th, 2008 under
dot CZ
Czech ecommerce has been limited with lack of any useful and widespread micropayment system so far. There were some attempts before, but since 2002 any micropayment system had to obtain a bank licence from Czech national bank and it was too difficult for all providers. Only Monetka.cz managed to get some kind of exception, but never succeeded as a popular payment method.
Other alternatives: PR SMS are limited by high commissions (more than 50% of price) from mobile carriers, Paypal is English-only (although you can use it in the Czech Repubic and in Czech crowns) and credit cards aren’t popular from both sides (smaller merchants can’t afford 3% commissions of every payment along with monthly bank fees for using cards acceptance system and on the other hand Czech customers don’t tend to use cards on the internet).
PaySec
But now it seems things are moving in the area of micropayments. CSOB, second largest bank in the country, announced a beta testing of their system PaySec, which will allow general use of micropayments with moderate conditions (1 CZK as a price of payment from customer side). However, conditions for merchants weren’t disclosed yet and only a limited number of them use PaySec in testing environment. It is thought that merchants will negotiate conditions individually according to their turnovers. (Source)
PaySec is in closed beta right now, but already several major ecommerce sites are announced to accept it - including Kosmas.cz (books), Aukro.cz (auctions), i-legalne.cz (online music) or Student Agency (travel agency, air tickets).
Sazka
But PaySec is not the only micropayment attempt on the market. The largest betting agency Sazka announced few weeks ago that they are working on kind of hybrid payment system, which will combine internet transactions with their large network of terminals (more than 7000). Sazka already allows people not only to place bets via terminals, but also charge their prepaid mobile cards, pay insurance bills or buy tickets. No details are known yet, but it is expected that during the internet transaction an unique number (or barcode for print) will be displayed to customer and he will pay with cash on Sazka terminal, referencing the number. It will be probably part of the already existing xPay.cz gateway, which offers several payment methods for merchants (see source code of www.xpay.cz website, in keywords section there is Sazka mentioned, although there is no word about Sazka on the site).
mPlatby
mBank is getting more and more popular in the Czech Republic, they already have more than 100 000 accounts opened. Nice, but what does it have in common with micropayments? Adam Zbiejczuk, mBank blogger and “mBank evangelist” had a speech on OpenMeeting in January and I noticed a small glimpse about mBank and micropayments during this year. mBank has still a lot to work on (their accounts offers really basic services, but are free), nevertheless this was interesting.
In Poland, mBank offers mTRANSFER, what is the closest thing to micropayments, but generally it is just a gateway for online payments between mBank accounts, similar what Czech eBanka or Slovak Tatrabanka already offers. These systems cannot be called micropayments, as they are available only to customers with accounts in mentioned banks and are charged as standard wire bank transfers.
But with mBank, as you have your account for free, it could serve as a micropayment-like solution, because there are no costs of maintaining your account. No one would open expensive eBanka account only to have it for online payments, but I can imagine people would do that with mBank account.
We will see, how this will develop - the biggest obstacle I see for mBank is a lack of business accounts. Companies can not open mBank account yet and thus mTRANSFER does not have any sense yet.
All three systems are generally positive thing, even the uncommon Sazka online/offline solution, which could bring ecommerce transactions closer to those, who are away of them yet. Czechs use cash-on-delivery as a primary payment method, which is limiting for some kind of goods and services. New payment methods could ignite new activities in ecommerce and web services and allow new projects to be created.
Published at April 4th, 2008 under
dot CZ
Both firms issued an official statement today, that both companies will merge under one owner - private equity fund Warburg Pincus, which acquired Centrum.cz two months ago.
Former owner of Atlas.cz, EPIC holding, was trying to sold it for several years. Some sources were reporting this merge since November, even before Centrum.cz has been sold to Warburg Pincus.
Atlas.cz and Centrum.cz combined could reach 3,3 milions mark in real users, which makes them No.2 among Czech internet projects, after leading Seznam.cz with 4,4 mil. real users (figures from December 2007). According to Martin Schreier from Marketing&Media magazine, about half a milion of real users will be added to original Centrum.cz portfolio.
At the beginning, both brands will be preserved, seeking and serving their niches within the whole group. However, major parts of both services will be dubbed (freemail, business directory, news section…) and we can expect cutting costs by merging these services in the near future.
Centrum.cz and Atlas.cz reported combined advertising revenues of 50 mil CZK (2 mil. euro ) in December, while Seznam.cz leads this category by more than 70 mil CZK (2,8 mil euro).
The most valuable assets of Atlas.cz are integration in popular instant messenger ICQ, very good mapping service at Amapy.cz or online tabloid Pikant.cz. Centrum.cz possesses solid freemail, great news at Aktualne.cz and also their other content projects (Zena.cz, Automix.cz or Digitalne.cz) are popular.
On the other hand, their search engine has no real market share - Centrum.cz has its own, while Atlas.cz used search technology outsourced by Seznam. Search and business directory will be probably more and more minor issue at “CentrumAtlas”, because they simply can not compete with Seznam, while they will focus more on content providing and community services. Definitely it will be interesting to watch the process of merge, as this will be the first time when such a big entities joins on the Czech market.
Published at February 26th, 2008 under
dot CZ
Second largest Czech ecommerce site Kasa.cz has been funded by Arca Capital Bohemia, private equity and real estate investor based in Slovakia. Arca Capital has through a share capital hike acquired 30 percent of Kasa.cz, having invested 30 mil. CZK (1.2 mil euro).
Arca plans to invest another 30 mil. CZK in the future, raising its stake to 60 percent, and bring Kasa.cz on the position of leader of Czech ecommerce, while expanding its activities to other European Countries. At this moment, Kasa.cz operates on Slovak, Polish and German market and after this funding they already announced Hungary will be next step soon.
The rest of the shares will remain in the hands of the firm’s four founders. Kasa.cz, which specializes on electronics, computers, sport goods and household tools, generated sales over 51 mil. euro last year, which makes them second largest Czech e-commerce site after Internet Mall.
Arca Capital invested more than 40 mil euro last year in the Czech republic. Currently they possesses stakes in various industries: GiTy (telecommunications), Marila (food industry), Moravia Energo (energetics, bought from former prime minister Stanislav Gross) or several real estate projects. They also announced an investment into new digital Febio TV two years ago, but due to legislative problems, Czech digital channels are not set up yet and future of this project is unclear. They are also active on Ukraine and Slovakia.
Investment to Kasa.cz is the first internet-based venture, but they already announced their interest to become leading SME venture capital investor in the Central and Eastern Europe. Arca Capital also already provided seed capital to PC games developer called The Easy Company, company built by former developers from Illusion Softworks (now 2K Czech).
I have no personal experience of shopping at Kasa.cz, it always seemed to me as large supermarket which sells printers next to lawn-movers and parfums with MP3 players, but obviously they are able to find own customers.
More about Arca Capital and its owners at Czech Business Weekly.
Published at February 15th, 2008 under
dot CZ
There are more and more english-written blogs in the Eastern Europe and I am happy to share them with you. Maybe you will find some of them interesting:
- By Jan - blog written by Jan Kubr, developer of Flempo web app. What I like about Jan’s blog are his tips fot worth to read books or articles - most of them are really worth to notice.
- Designeast.eu - Design in Central and Eastern Europe, written by glass designer Martin Zampach, another blogging FMK UTB alumni. Not much about webdesign, but I like the concept.
- Maratz.com - blog of Croatian guy Marko Dugonjić, focused on webdesign, user experience and events.
- Cromotion - Berislav Lopac recently lanuched this blog, which can be most easily described as “Croatian Techcruch”. Check out what is happenning in your favourite summertime location
In my last post I expressed my remarks about current web-focused events which began to happen in the Czech Republic. I agree there are many problems make such an events come into being and make them well and I give all credits to everyone who decided to put them up.
But still, there are several things I see as a keys of successful events. I managed to collect 10 of them, because 10 things which blah blah… are usually the most popular blogposts Advices are collected from my own experiences from events I took part in as an organizer, active participant, member of the audience, observer or just someone interested.
1 - Describe and name your target audience well. Let people know who should and who shouldn’t attend and why. What kind of level will the speeches/presentations/discussions will have? Avoid advanced experts get bored on events focused on basics and marketing guys on geeky speech. Well prepared and descriptive schedule/list of attendees will make a lot of work in this point. But don’t forget to attract someone new or unusual, whether it means whole target group or individuals. There is nothing inspiring in meeting the same bunch of faces all the time - and variety of POVs is always good.
2 - Lower barriers as low as possible. If event is supposed to be “open”, let anyone come on “first come, first served” basis. Let people come until venue capacity has been reached.
3 - If event is supposed to be paid, bring some real value to the participants. They do not invest only the bucks you ask for registration, they also invest their time (usually after works). Free sparkling water is not a real value Make discounts for budget-sensitive. How could you find talents when attendance fee would distract many students? Ask sponsors to cover necessary costs - they usually sponsor much more meaningless events than yours great one
4 - Pick suitable venue. Different requirements are for discussions, informal meetings, conferences, workshops etc. Larger venue with few audience is better than small venue with crowded room and many left out. Be careful about your technical equipment - lights, seating, projectors, flipcharts, sound - all these thing can annoy when aren’t working properly.
5 - Bring detailed info about event in time. Will there be any refreshment available or should we bring something to eat and drink? Will there be a wi-fi for liveblogging or presenting our web app working live? Tell people what kind of topics will be covered, and if you ask them for participation, bring some “cases” and “how-to”s to adjust the format and length.
6 - Prepare schedule carefully. People tends to drag out their speeches. If schedule is packed, be strict on time keeping. Prepare enough time for breaks and discussions. Keep in mind that 5 minute breaks always lasts at least 15 minutes.
7 - Make networking easier. If number of attendees allow, make opportunity for everyone to introduce themselves briefly. If not, use some kind of internet wall to post info about who is possible to meet. And don’t push people out of the room 10 minutes after last presentation has been finished. If your event is good, people would love to talk after it for hours If possible, include socializing time in the schedule.
8 - Look abroad. Try to find similar events in other countries and ask organizers about their experiences. I am sure most of them will be happy to share. Do not re-invent a wheel.
9 - Generate some buzz. Ask bloggers to cover your event, invite them, post about your event on related discussion boards, magazines and social networks. Use wiki to share thoughts before and after event, publish presentations on services like slideshare. Let people continue their discussions online.
10 - And finally, don’t be discouraged when thins go wrong way. Ask people for feedback what could be done better next time, how would they improve the event. And don’t forget it should be also fun. At least a bit
One of key aspects of todays’ web trends is networking. And I do not mean virtual networking on social networks, but real networking with real people on real venues. Meeting other geeks, entrepreneurs, bloggers, developers, investors or just web fans and creating new connections and contacts for future moves the whole community forwards by huge steps. Nothing is better for inspiration than sharing ideas, thoughts, experiences or opinions. Personally, attending FOWA last February brought me such amount of new things just to think about (not even to learn or use) that anything similar was able before.
Finally, networking trend landed here in the Czech Republic. Sure, there has been some events before, specially on developer field, but web enviroment remained almost untouched until last year. That was the reason why such a geeky event like Ostrava on Rails was adopted by many non-developers. Later, Czech internet forum (with some residues among topics covered from old times when internet=cables and infrastructure) brought some light into Czech web and finally, more informal events began to work - OpenMeeting and OpenCoffee.
Speaking about Open Coffee, after Prague, Brno will also host this kind of events. Kick-off of Brnopolis Open Cofee is scheduled on 12th of February.
But we still live in the Czech Republic and things aren’t perfect as you would expect. I have already mentioned the “openness” issue of Open Meeting (which closes door to many people who would like to participate). Another example of not-so-well-understood situation is Nekonference, one of the first un-conference style events on Czech web. Having an unconference, where you have to pay 500 CZK for attending 3-hours event, that seems like huge misunderstanding. As we have noticed very specific interpretation of the word “open”, now we see specific interpretation of unconference rules.
Don’t take me wrong, I am very happy to see such an events are happening. But we still have to learn. As we learn how to use and how to produce everything what current web can bring (with some delay after other countries), with the same delay we learn how to talk, discuss, conference, share and “drink coffee” about it. And there is definitely nothing wrong about learning.
Following post: 10 things which makes your event better
If anyone interested in ice hockey world junior championships, just follow our coverage from Pardubice and Liberec at www.worldjuniors2008.com (in English) and www.msj2008.cz (in Czech).
Our coverage includes news and game reports, video highlights and interviews and on-line minute-by-minute text updates at Onlajny.cz. Speaking of which, today has been the very first day when we published live game commentary of one game in Czech, English and Slovak - thanks to our friends Henrik, Frank and Ryan for helping us with the English ones.
What I would like to point out is the official webisite of International ice hockey federation - IIHF.com. They underwent a major redesign recently and - what really surprises me - they used open-source content management framework Typo3 to build their website. Today, when the first real peaks occured (world junior championships are very popular especially in Canada), site has been down for several times during the day. I am not sure if the CMS was the reason of lock-downs, but it seems to me quite unusal to use open source system in such a large organisation. And if you compare IIHF.com to similar organisations’ websites like FIBA.com (basketball) or UEFA.com (football), it’s obvious why hockey is still a small sport worldwide.
Published at December 27th, 2007 under
dot COM
First ever real Czech startup Bezrealitky.cz has been awarded as a startup of the year in the competition with the same name. Nothing says about Czech startup scene more. Bring a really good idea for startup, work hard and you have a chance to success even in the Czech republic.
Czech Jakub Havrlant and Frenchman Alexis Manach succeded among 63 projects competing with their original service, which allows people to sell or let properties without paying commission to the real estate broker. After two months running, more than 1200 classifieds went through system and currently about 40 new ones appears every day. It is reported that Bezrealitky.cz already posseses 4% of appropriate market!
What is this startup about?
Bezrealitky uses something what is obvious when searching for place to live, but almost no one real estate agency did use it before: maps. Google Maps mash-up show selected properties on the map and gives you detailed overview what kind of neighbours you can expect. At this moment map service works only for Prague, but it is expected to expand it soon to other areas as well.
Using bezrealitky.cz for inserting your apartments or homes is free, including their call-centrum or downloading sample contracts. Business model is based on additional services - you can pay for highlighting your offer, English translation, for services of professional photographer or legal and financial advices, provided by partners of bezrealitky.cz. Service also cooperates with large real estate developers, who promote their new projects among others.
How do they assure that no real estate broker fill up the form and register a property? People are encouraged to report any classifieds, which may be found in some broker’s offer. Brokers are also evicted out of service under a threat of 50.000 CZK fine (about 2000 euro) when attempt of using bezrealitky by them is remarked.
What are they winning?
As far as I know, Startup of the year was first ever competition of this kind over here. I has been quite skeptical about the people behind the project in this post, however Jakub’s words (see later) confirmed, that taking part in this kind of event would really help them even when they don’t win.
What was the first prize? Bezrealitky.cz has got an investment round, new investor got 50% of the company for amount of 2 million CZK. As Jakub Havrlant says, this is their first real investor, initial funding of the start-up has been backed by private sources. But not only this money are important. Strategic consultancy or help with geographical expansion would be a benefit too.
Interview with Jakub Havrlant, Bezrealitky.cz co-founder.
Bezealitky.cz is based on your original idea, or did you have any foreign inspiration?
Majority of the project is our own idea, where we wanted to bring innovation with usage of map and also on the market position (without the broker). Small inspiration has come from working models of private classifieds from western Europe
What was the most difficult part of the startup - find the right people, technological stuff, marketing or rising money?
There has been challenges in all areas you mention. The most difficult thing was find the right balance between them and allocate the right sources and energy on all of them almost equal. Our aim was rise and keep conception which has strengths both in marketing and technical area.
Lot of people noticed your marketing campaign, based on billboards and overhead banners in Prague’s metro and trams, combined with pay-per-click campaigns. It’s obvious it was not for free, could you share with us what part of initial budget went to marketing?
We alone are surprised how many people already heard about us. My opinion is, that we tried to communicate innovations, something really new, and word-of-mouth works really well in this cases. About the percentage of all costs, it is about 30% of the budged what we spent on marketing.
Can you tell me how satisfied you are with the progress now, two-and-something months after the launch?
Project outdid our expectations in several directions: 1. we are getting a huge support by many people who like the idea and they try to help us in many ways. 2. traffic numbers we are getting in 2 months, 3. interest from potential partners about our project.
Your are Czech, your buddy Alexis is Frenchmen, does it possesses any advantages or disadvantages to start your venture in Prague with the foreigner?
To be honest I don’t see much difference between us. Prague is quite cosmopolitan and open city so it isn’t problem to work here as a foreigner. Only issue we have is our English - it is getting worse, we are using our own special language, which is impossible to understand by others
You have just agreed about the investment. Do you expect any other help than the financial investment itself?
Of course we expect help with consulting setting strategic goals and help with potential geographical expansion.
Startup of the year was a student’s only competition, you both are students of Prague’s VSE. How did you feel about the process and was it a benefit for your company to take part event in case you don’t win anything?
Meet many people with interesting and smart thoughts, it was the main element of our motivation. Another benefit was meeting with the jury made up of great personalities of Czech market and hear their opinions and comments.
Would you recommend other entrepreneurs, both current or potential, participation in similar a conquest?
Definitely. At least as something what sorts out their business thoughts and helps them create strong business concept. Requests raised during the conquest also helps to focus on things which are really important for your entrepreneurship.
Conclusion?
Of course it is up to you. But here are my humble points which I see inspirational in this case:
- Bring an idea which really helps people (Bezrealitky saves people’s time and money. Two fundamental things.)
- Bring innovations in areas where large corporates are unable to bring it. (Why the heck Sreality.cz doesn’t link real estate classified ads to Mapy.cz , both projects of Seznam.cz?)
- Communicate in a positive manner and don’t forget about off-line world. (3B mixture rule - Billboards, Blog and CPC Bids)
- Don’t worry about the money too much. When you are good, money will come. (And don’t forget to try getting to right people any time you have a chance)
- Run a blog with both funny and interesting content. (”Do not pay your broker, get a hot maid instead!“)
Published at December 16th, 2007 under
dot CZ
