Seznam.cz

History, Ownership, and Investments of Seznam.cz - Founded in 1996 by Ivo Lukačovič in Prague - Started as the first web portal and search engine in the Czech Republic - Initially offered a search engine and internet yellow pages - Expanded to include financial, social, and political news, TV programs, weather forecasts, dictionaries, maps, and community services - Spray International invested in Seznam in 2000, becoming a joint stock company - Spray International acquired around 30% share of Seznam in 2000 - Ivo Lukačovič retained at least 70% of Seznam stock after the investment - Spray abandoned plans for an IPO after the dot-com bubble burst in 2000 - Ivo Lukačovič increased the base capital of Seznam in 2003, becoming the 70% owner - Seznam acquired the Czech firm ATC in 2005 and merged email services with Email.cz Competition between Seznam.cz and Google - Seznam was the most used search engine in the Czech Republic in 2008 - Google overtook Seznam around 2011, according to the EU - Seznam still held a majority share of the Czech search market at the start of 2014, but Google pulled ahead in the second half of the year - As of the end of 2018, Google had a 74% share of search on the Czech internet, while Seznam had a 26% share - Seznam uses its own ranking scale for web pages called S-Rank Seznam Services - Firmy.cz: Companies directory - Horoskopy.cz: Horoscopes - Hry.cz: Games - Lidé.cz: People directory - Spolužáci.cz: Classmates directory Expansion and Acquisitions of Seznam.cz - Seznam moved its headquarters to a more prominent location in Prague in 2006 - Acquired all email users from Czech On Line in 2006 - Bought 50% of Global Inspiration, the company running video portal Stream.cz, in 2007 - Lycos Europe sold its 30% share in Seznam to Tiger Holding and Miura International in 2007 - Miura International, Tiger Holding, and Helifreak Limited held shares in Seznam as of 2015 Other Search Engines (Cuil, Empas, Forestle, GenieKnows, Gigablast) - Cuil: Launched in 2008, developed by former Google employees, claimed to have indexed more web pages than any other search engine, shut down in 2010 due to financial difficulties - Empas: South Korean search engine, launched in 1999, initially focused on Korean-language content, expanded to include English-language search results, acquired by NHN Corporation in 2001 - Forestle (later renamed to Ecosia): Launched in 2008, environmental-focused search engine, donated 100% of its advertising revenue to rainforest protection projects, used Google Custom Search to deliver search results - GenieKnows (later rebranded as Yippy): Launched in 1999, Canadian search engine, provided search results for web, images, videos, news, and local content, offered contextual advertising solutions for publishers - Gigablast: Launched in 2000, developed by Matt Wells, indexed billions of web pages, offered advanced search features such as phrase searching and Boolean operators, open-source search engine software available for download