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
This article needs additional citations for verification. (November 2014) |
Seznam.cz (or Seznam, list in Czech) is a web portal and search engine in the Czech Republic. Founded in 1996 by Ivo Lukačovič in Prague as the first web portal in the Czech Republic. Seznam started with a search engine and an internet version of yellow pages. Today, Seznam runs almost 30 different web services and associated brands. Seznam had more than 6 million real users per month at the end of 2014. Among the most popular services, according to NetMonitor, are its homepage seznam.cz, email.cz, search.seznam.cz and its yellow pages firmy.cz.[citation needed]
 | |
Type of site | Joint stock company |
|---|---|
| Founded | 1996 |
| Headquarters | , |
| Area served | Czech Republic, Slovakia |
| Founder(s) | Ivo Lukačovič |
| Key people | Pavel Zima (GM) Michal Feix (CEO) |
| Revenue |  3,129 billion CZK (2014) |
| Operating income | 1,136 billion CZK (2014) |
| Profit | 740 million CZK (2010) |
| Total assets |  1,555 million CZK (2010) |
| Total equity | 834 million CZK (2010) |
| Employees | 1,575 (2018) |
| Parent | Helifreak Limited (100 %) |
| URL | www |
In 2008, Seznam.cz was the most used search engine in the Czech Republic. As of May 2012, according to Toplist results, Seznam was the second internet search engine in the Czech Republic (42.84%) with Google in the top spot (54.69%).[citation needed]. By August 2014, still according to Toplist's statistics, Seznam's share of searches had further eroded to 38%.
Between 2011 and 2012, Seznam Czech rhyme; Seznam - najdu tam, co hledám (Seznam - I find there, what I search for) as its slogan. Its former (& current) slogan is Seznam - najdu tam, co neznám (Seznam - I find there, what I don't know).
