Written by Dejan Bizinger, a web manager at Serbian media company B92.net, and edited by Richard MacManus
Serbia is a country located
in Southeast Europe with around 9 million people. Around 1.5 million Serbians use the
Internet and the majority of them are still dial-up users. The main reasons for the small
broadband penetration are the economic situation in Serbia and problems with the infrastructure -
many people still have doublers, so they can’t have ADSL (despite broadband
connection like ADSL being available since 2005).
The web market in Serbia is developing, but currently there are not more than 20 quality web sites and services. The online advertising market in Serbia in 2005 was 500,000 Euros - and around 50% of that went to the B92.net web site (see below, in the blogging section). This year it is projected that the online advertising market will be 1 Million Euros. However a boom is expected on the Serbian Web scene, because more and more people are becoming broadband users. Also soon a domestic credit card payment provider will be introduced, which will enable webmasters to monetize their content/services.
In Serbia there is a news start page called Naslovi.net, which means 'Titles'. It aggregates the daily top news from Serbia. While it doesn’t have the functionality of a web 2.0 start page like Netvibes or Pageflakes, it is still a useful and popular destination for people who want to find all the top news on one page.
The most popular Web 2.0 service from Serbia that has gained world popularity is called activeCollab, from a developer named Ilija Studen. It is a free project management Basecamp alternative - it has gotten many diggs and coverage in some of the world’s most famous tech blogs.
Another popular, recently launched, Web 2.0 service is called Donesi.com - which means 'Bring'. Donesi.com has plans for internationalization, as indicated by the language options available. The purpose of this service is to publish offers from as many restaurants as possible, so that people can order food online.
There is also a price comparison service on MyShop.co.yu, similar to services like BizRate and Shopping. Recently, it launched an auction web site called Limundo.com, which hasn't yet achieved popularity.
Serbia has two good Web 2.0 services for language usage. The first is called Metak and it is an Ajax-driven Serbian-English and English-Serbian dictionary. The owners decided to call this service Metak, which means Bullet - because they claim it is very fast! Another language service is called Vokabular and its purpose is to give the meaning of different Serbian words. It is a Serbian language dictionary.
There are several popular online dating websites in Serbia. One of the oldest is Poljubac, which means 'Kiss'. This service was acquired several years ago by Romanian company Neogen.
Another dating service is Romance Café, which was acquired by a German company. The majority of the service is free - and for a modest fee that is paid through SMS, members get more advanced features.
Although not a web 2.0 application, I want to mention an IT web forum called Elitesecurity - which has more than 100,000 members. It is the biggest IT forum in Southeast Europe and one of the biggest in Europe.
Big companies - except B92 and Telekom Srbija (which launched two portals in 2006) - still don’t focus on creating big and profitable web sites. Also big companies mostly have not invested in or bought popular Serbian web destinations. However that is expected to change in 2007!
In Serbia, real blogging services are still in their infancy. There are many less bloggers in Serbia than in nearby countries like Croatia and Hungary.
One Serbian blog service is called MojBlog (part of the regional MyBlog.gs network). Another open blog service can be found on the Nadlanu web site, which is owned by Telekom Srbija. Also, recently a long-awaited blog service was launched on the Blog.co.yu domain.
The most visited web site in Serbia and one of the most popular in Southeast Europe is B92.net [disclaimer: Dejan works for B92.net as a web manager]. It gets over 100,000 daily unique visitors and has an Alexa ranking of around 2000. B92.net is owned by media house B92, which also has TV and radio stations. They also launched the B92 Blog - it is not an open blog service, but a so-called V.I.P. blog and invitation only. Many of the bloggers there are high profile people from the public life of Serbia, such as writers, actors and politicians. There are around 10,000 daily unique visitors and more than 5,000 registered members on B92 Blog.
When we talk about blogging in Serbia, it is also worth mentioning a blog service called Planeta Srbija - which aggregates dozens of blogs in the Serbian blogosphere.
Many thanks to Dejan Bizinger for contributing this post about Serbia! As usual, if there are further Serbian web apps you know of that we may've missed - please add to the comments. Also if you're from Serbia and have some interesting information to tell, feel free to leave a comment. R/WW readers are enjoying this international web apps series (based on all the positive feedback I get about it!), so any further information you contribute will be much appreciated.
This post is part of Read/WriteWeb's continuing coverage of international Web markets. Other countries profiled so far have been Germany, Holland, Poland, Korea, United Kingdom, Russia, Spain, China, Turkey, Italy, Brazil, France, Japan, India, Austria, Sweden, Australia and Hungary.
Listed below are links to blogs that reference this entry: Top Web Apps in Serbia.
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Comments
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I have no comments regarding any of the specific sites discussed, but I think it's awesome to see how widespread the wide world web really has become, and how it inspires innovation from all around the globe.
Posted by: Mikael Bergkvist | November 23, 2006 4:29 PMIt's amazing to see how many smart people there really are out there.
Good description of the Serbian web market.
Posted by: lunov | November 23, 2006 6:39 PMHi Richard, could you reopen comments on these web app pages? Markets like Spain are changing rapidly and it could be interesting that these pages are updated
Thanks!
Posted by: dodonnell | November 23, 2006 11:44 PMMedia companies in Serbia are also slow in understanding importance of web presence. For example, web pages of newspapers are updated only once a day, with contents already published in print editions
Posted by: La Yahti | November 24, 2006 7:01 AMSome additions for top web applications in Serbia:
Serbian YouTube clone
Kobajagrande.com - www.kobajagrande.com
Quality CMS
Posted by: Dejan Bizinger | November 24, 2006 3:32 PMVivvo.net - www.vivvo.net
dodonnell, great suggestion! I have re-opened comments on all the international market posts. thanks :-)
Posted by: Richard MacManus | November 24, 2006 11:30 PMThing is that very small percentage of web sites in Serbia are made for conducting a primary business and only a few companies employ people to really work on web sites focused to local market as primary goal. Most quality local sites are made by enthusiasts out of hobby or for fun.
Fore example, I'm into web development for over 7 years, being in Serbia all the time, and I don't even have a clue how many lines of code I've outsourced. Except my own web site, none of my other projects could be considered as purely Serbian product.
That's probably the same as if one would look for a great Indian web site, yet I bet the considerable part of Microsoft.com was made by Indians.
Currently, Serbia has a big potential in manpower for high-end web development, but internet based bussiness are yet to be developed for the local market.
Posted by: Vlad | November 25, 2006 7:25 AMGovorite srpski da vas ceo svet razume !
Posted by: Marko | November 25, 2006 11:49 AMThe article is pretty much true, I've enjoyed reading it. Just one note:
Posted by: Stefan T. | November 26, 2006 10:04 AM"In Serbia there is a news start page called Naslovi.net, which means 'Titles'"
The real meaning is "Headlines" (as in newspapers), not "Titles" - just to clear that out.
The article is NOT true. Not only that some of services listed above are acquired so could not be stated as "serbian", most of them should not be labeled as Web 2.0 also, since they don't use proper standards and technology and are seldom even updated. It would be prudent to engage someone else from Serbia to state the REAL situation of Web in this country...
Posted by: Margita | December 3, 2006 4:23 PMThere are lot more Web 2.0 projects in Serbia than stated above.
Its good to have Serbian web scene evaluated and presented to the world, on the other hand its said that majority of analysis are superficial, not objective and are being written with weeping notes.
Its also interesting to point that most analysis come from the people who are employed in organizations that are financed from foreign donations serving to raise the level of the same, criticized, in this case, web scene.
I am disgusted with this article
Posted by: Milan Vreljanski | December 25, 2006 2:59 PMThere are lot more Web 2.0 projects in Serbia than stated above
Okay. Name some.
Posted by: fuzzylogic | December 28, 2006 11:29 AMI second that. Milan, unless you actually name some of the "web 2.0 projects" you say aren't mentioned - then your criticism is pointless. If you're so disgusted with the article, then give us some actual details - be constructive!
Posted by: Richard MacManus | December 28, 2006 8:37 PMI'm disgusted with the way you write Milan.
I don't understand this: "Its also interesting to point that most analysis come from the people who are employed in organizations that are financed from foreign donations serving to raise the level of the same, criticized, in this case, web scene."
I will repeat the same question like Richard - please name those Web 2.0 applications in Serbia which are not mentioned in this article?
Margita: If you read my article, I wrote that some services were acquired. This article is not only about web 2.0 applications but the main focus is on web 2.0 services. For example, ES or B92 Blog is not a web 2.0 application but it worth mentioning because of the community they have.
Please give some constructive thing rather just to write hate mails.
Posted by: Dejan Bizinger | January 3, 2007 7:57 AMDejan & Margita >
That depends on what definition of "Web 2.0" you use (and as of yet no one has managed to produce a definition that would satisfy all). If you go by the definition of "it uses AJAX" or "is wiki-based" or "it's all shiny and fancy with a reflected logo and a name that has no meaning whatsoever and is hard to pronounce", then yeah, EliteSecurity and a few others mentioned aren't "Web 2.0" by any stretch of the imagination. But one of the main features of "Web 2.0" is the social aspect, "folksonomy" as some call it. In that regard ES, the b92 blog etc have really shined, even if using formats and technologies that have been available for quite some time.
Now, there are a few new additions to the list I have discovered recently:
http://www.globalnoselo.com/ (Global Village) - a Google API based search engine and directory, with the possibility of tagging, commenting and rating sites. Very cool and very handy, I expect it to become really useful once they have more sites in the directory.
http://www.zalogaj.com/ (Bite) - A cooking/recepie site that allows users to comment and rate recepies, but also to save recepies to your own "book" (basically a fancy favorites function), as well as user interaction via forums etc. What I would love to see here is who saved what in the member profiles (if they choose to make it public), along the lines of what del.icio.us does.
http://www.blogodak.com - A recently-launched site that, it seems, was made with the intention of being a replacement for Planeta Srbija, however some of the most important functionalities are yet to become a reality (most important one is being able to filter which blogs you would like displayed and which ones you wouldn't). It's in public beta right now (but in actual beta as in "beta 'cause we're still testing", not beta as in "beta 'cause it's trendy"). We'll see where it goes, it has promise.
Posted by: fuzzylogic | January 5, 2007 11:27 AM"Vlad" you are absolutely right, I agree with you totally, and I would like to thank "Dejan" for very correct analyze of the current situation.
There will be always "a.. h..." like Milan that tries to be smart, but have nothing to say, we should all just ignore him.
If we do not like the situation, we should not hide behind stupid comments and fight with others, but we should see it as an excellent business opportunity to invest in that area. If we do not do it, someone will do that soon for sure :)
Regards,
Posted by: petar | January 15, 2007 12:03 AMPetar
Most oldest serbia serach engines krstraica.com is also big web1.0 site
Posted by: mile | January 25, 2007 1:32 PM@Dejan:
Article is clearly entitled "Top Web Apps in Serbia" and is mainly focused on "Web 2.0 Apps" so stating that "this article is not only about web 2.0 applications" just isn't right. And acquired sites? They are past tense. So, according to your later statement, there isn't anything we have to offer (with or without 2.0 services) besides 1 forum and 1 blog. Other sites are just work of fiction when it comes to modern Net vibes.
@fuzzylogic:
Point taken. It IS all about social aspect. Name any of sites listed above with large, active and innovative community. Except (already mentioned) 1 forum and 1 blog! I could think of couple of other interesting forums, but it's just all they are. Nothing innovative and definitely nothing Web 2.0!
Constructive enough?
Posted by: Margita | January 31, 2007 2:36 PMSerbian digg clone http://ukusno.com (delicious)
Posted by: vlada | February 7, 2007 11:01 AMSerbian urban dictionary: http://www.vukajlija.com
Posted by: kaizen | February 12, 2007 8:50 AMEXIT festival released its social networking service
Interesting Drupal modification!
Warm suggestion!
Posted by: Eniac | March 23, 2007 12:16 PMSerbian Blog Service
http://blogoye.org/
Posted by: .:Z:. | March 30, 2007 12:20 PMgood list.For some of this things I dont know.
Posted by: doktorrr | April 30, 2007 8:22 AMThis is most popular site in serbia
Posted by: Marko | May 26, 2007 10:53 AMwww.kurvelive.com
This is most popular site in serbia
Posted by: Marko | May 26, 2007 10:53 AMwww.kurvelive.com
I saw this debate now, and it has been a lot of time since we crossed our swords. I am not sure if its good to put the debate on heat again.
I just tried to say my opinion, to be constructive enough I would need a lot more time and I don't have it. I respect what the author said and I am grateful for his article and effort. But also it is not something that represent my country in correct manner so I had to react.
I will try to get a list of sites soon, so you all can get a "bigger picture"
also to prove my point we would need to define what is by your standards "a lot more web sites than stated above". I think that if I provide 30 more web projects that are web 2.0 I would prove my point.
Posted by: Milan Vreljanski | May 30, 2007 2:26 AMTourist portal of Sokobanja spa:
Posted by: Vladimir | July 31, 2007 9:05 AMhttp://www.soko-banja.org