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Centrum tries social networking

Czechs launch hybrid version of Facebook and LinkedIn

By Claire Compton
Staff Writer, The Prague Post
October 22nd, 2008 issue

With 62,158 users who claim residence in the Czech Republic, social networking site Facebook has managed to make as significant an impact here as it has in the United States and worldwide. Centrum, the Czech company that runs Aktuálně.cz, Atlas.cz, Centrum.cz and ICQ Czech Republic, among other sites, has announced their own foray into social networking that will also combine elements of professional networking sites such as LinkedIn. Sitko.cz, short for Síť kontaktů (the net of contacts), will be launched at the end of 2008.
Centrum’s Web sites are visited by 1 million visitors each day and 3.8 million unique visitors each month — an audience the company hopes will bring Sitko.cz membership numbers similar to those that other, more established, networking sites pull in from the Czech Republic.
“We’ve got big ambitions and goals for this, [but] as of right now, our community project doesn’t have a set [membership number],” spokesman Petr Kapalín said.
Sitko.cz will not be the first Czech-based networking site, as it follows the lead of rival Spolužáci.cz, a site operated by leading Web portal Seznam.cz. Centrum hopes to set its site apart by offering users two parts to their profile, allowing them to draw the line between sharing personal and professional information.
“We think that a dating site or a business register is no longer sufficient for today’s Internet users. Our users will be able to create two worlds on the new Web site: one public and one completely private,” Ondřej Švihálek, head of community services at Centrum, told the daily Hospodářské noviny.
In keeping with the broader-use theme for the site, the project won’t target one particular demographic, as Facebook initially did with college students.
“It’s not about age. We’ll distinguish four main groups of users according to their behavior,” Kapalín said.
But despite the site’s ambitions, the company acknowledges the model is based firmly on the successes of other leading sites.
“It connects the best features from other Czech and foreign community sites, but we’ve added some special features,” Kapalín said.
A social networking report from the Universal McCann advertising agency found that one-third of LinkedIn’s users were from Europe, and 800,000 Czechs are members of at least one social networking site — a growing statistic that means companies will likely begin launching sites uniquely designed for individual countries.
“The next anticipated phase of social networking is a launch of country-specific offerings, as the U.S. online networking market may be reaching a saturation point,” the report said.

Claire Compton can be reached at ccompton@praguepost.com


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