Tag Archive for 'social networks'

Online opportunities in Central Europe

I was in Prague earlier this month conducting a partner search for a social networking company. While I cannot comment on the specifics of that business, I can pass on a few observations about the Central European Internet market.

The online populations of Hungary, Czechia, Slovakia and Austria are relatively small. They are linguistically and culturally isolated. Even the Austrians, who share a common language with Germany and part of Switzerland, prefer to use Austrian websites. This limits the scale of any online business that addresses a single Central European market.

However, it would be a mistake to conclude that there aren’t any decent opportunities in these markets.

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NETIES is ending

The 6th Framework Programme is practically over and so it is our NETIES project. In last two years we surveyed over 750 SMEs, organised 32 networking events, workshops or conferences attended by 1750 people in six countries. The consortium provided 84 individual consulting sessions and coached 31 companies in the area of finding foreign partners, improving and presenting their business plans or FP6 applications.

22 contributors from 11 countries published more than 300 posts here sharing their experience, views and comments on the topics of technology innovation, R&D funding, venture capital and Central and Eastern Europe. NowEurope attracted totally 30,000 unique visitors over the period. Thank you all.

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