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Comment by lubos | Hacker News Reader

Honestly, I'm surprised to see Seznam on HN. I grew up on Czech internet in 90s and Seznam.cz (or "Directory" in English) has been huge for long time until Google has eventually beaten them. The vibe I get here from comments is like as if Seznam.cz is some new hot company while it is really a dying dinosaur like Yahoo.

Maps are not core competency of this company. They are early Internet pioneers maintaining huge portfolio of various services for almost two decades. Maps is just another service they are working on to keep users from leaving them for Google/Youtube, Facebook etc.

Btw, I spoke to Seznam.cz founder briefly once at some business event in Slovakia back in 2000 when I was 17

edit: their maps are created by Melown.com, see example https://www.melown.com/maps/

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I do disagree, that Seznam.cz would be a dying company (and not only because i am its spokes person). Maps are a very important part of our product scale. we do a lot to have the best maps in the region - most accurate, most up-to-date and best for users. we are working on our own Panorama, 3D maps like these 8 already revealed for the whole Czech Republic. and we have an awsome app for maps with on-line data for the whole Czech Republic. Is constant innovation a sign of a dying firm?

Hi, exactly, I would say that among Czech internet companies, Seznam makes the best (and most innovative) products. And I think it's quite cool that you're able to compete with Google.

Are you looking for an Android dev btw ;) ?

Innovative? Most of the time, they're inferior Google copycats.

A company whose frontpage looks like Yahoo cca 2000? "Constant innovation", right. More like "very much constant, always playing catch-up, and moping over long-gone glory of the 90s."

To sum it up with Wikipedia-like markup: "Most accurate [citation-needed], most up-to-date [citation-needed], best for users [says-who]."

Where would you date Google's front page? Don't judge a book by its cover.

I'd say it's a reflection on the pragmatism in the culture. (reluctantly generalizing)

u mad?

Sad, mostly. "Okay, the game is over and we have won, we are the king of the internet, no need to do anything anymore. (Internet ends at the border, btw)" This was 15 years ago.

Comparing Seznam to a dying dinousaur is extremely misguided. In terms of innovation and poduct quality, they're doing very well. They're slowly losing their search market share because it's hard to compete with Google but that doesn't mean they're dying. Also, it's the most attractive Czech IT company for employees.

Where exactly are they innovating?

for example: stream.cz user interface, offline maps for Android and iOS, winter maps, maps for the blind, new firmy.cz

I interpret innovation as breaking some new ground, doing something that has not been done before. Does any of the things you enumerated really do that?

Well, the stream.cz and super.cz user interfaces seem innovative. Maps for the blind too.

Did they ever try expanding into foreign territory? I haven't seen them even in Germany in the lsat 10-15 years.

Yes, but AFAIK only to Slovakia.

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