Presentation on June 7th, 2008 @ Barcamp Caucasus: a short overview of web media development in Estonia.

1. The Estonian Experience
Jüri Kaljundi
Co-Founder, Nagi & CVO Group

2. ● 1,3 million people
● ~70% Internet penetration
● ~800 thousand Internet banking users
● 88% declare their taxes over Internet
● Home of Kazaa, Skype, Playtech
● Under 10 thousand IT people
● Own country too small – go outside

3. Mature market
● 11 out of 20 top sites created in 1990-s
● No new top 20 sites in last 2 years
● Same is happening in many EU countries
● First-mover advantage still works!
● Right time to enter new markets now

4. Top Sites Today
● Top 10:
– 4 newspapers
– 1 news portal
– 1 social network
– 1 web search catalogue
– 2 free e-mail providers
– 1 car classified ads
● Top 11-20: job ads, real estate, weather, TV
guide, photo sharing, business news,
classifieds, more news

5. Finnish Top Sites
● 3 newspapers
● 2 TV, radio & news sites
● 2 social network & discussion sites
● 2 local MSN sites
● 1 local Live Hotmail
● Top 11-20: phone directory, TV guide, auctions,
business newspaper, job ads, real estate, TV
channel etc

6. Ownership
● Exit for startups – think today
● Top 10 owned by:
– 2 Telcos
– 4 Media groups (local+international)
● Small number of independent large sites
● Build now or buy (sell) later

7. Localisation vs global brands
● What people like? Local !
● Translation is not localisation
● Local customs and culture
● Integration with other local services
● Local people
● Fast changes
● There is a big market for local services

8. Revenue sources
● Ads 10 mEUR per year, 69% growth
● Close to 10% of ad market
● Banners – mostly 728x90
● 90% through large media agencies
● Local ad networks – also for blogs
● Business and personal contracts
– Jobs, cars, real estate
● SMS payments

9. Cost control for startups
● It might take many years to become profitable
● Large investments does not equal success
● Try to be as low budget as possible
● Organic growth makes you smarter

10. Blogs
● Around 3-4 thousand blogs
● Growth is stable and linearly slow
● Politicians – traditional media quotes
● Blog.tr.ee – blog catalogue

12. Thank you !