"We recognize the growing significance of the Internet [for the Czech business community] and we want to focus on it more," Řezníčková said. "We want to be more than a mere publisher of the biggest phone directory and companies' catalog in this country."

Luboš Čipera, Mediatel's director for marketing and strategic development, said the number of online visitors to the company's Web site (www.zlatestranky.cz) rose 25 percent since the beginning of this year. Despite the current rise of Internet business, however, Mediatel has no plans to stop publishing printed copies but would prefer a balance between printed phone books and company directories and online databases.

To make online searches more effective, Čipera said, the company has worked on upgrading its search engine. From the beginning of 2006, "advertisers will be able to start updating their entries, and they'll be able to expand them by the description of their products and services," he said.

Online listings booming

Online listings seem to be a hit among local businesses.

"There is an apparent shift of investment from hard copy [business] catalog to their online formats. More and more money is flowing into online databases," said Oldřich Bajer, a founder of the second-biggest Czech Web portal, Centrum.cz. Running databases generates a 43 percent share of Centrum.cz's annual revenue.

Similarly, the third-biggest Czech Web portal, Atlas.cz, experienced a massive growth of interest in online database entries.

Atlas.cz's director Michal Černík recently told Euro that the increasing number of entries in online business databases could boost the revenue share of its database to 60 percent.

The total revenue share for online business databases for the leading Czech portal, Seznam.cz, reached 65 percent last year, largely from advertising on real estate and automotive portals, according to Seznam.cz head Ivo Lukačovič.

Bajer said that the number of firms asking for priority listings was especially increasing.

"Today, having a strong Internet presentation and being listed in major online databases is a must for any enterprise that aspires to get some international orders," Danda said. "Staying just at traditional listings in local printed [business] catalogs would be a mistake."

War on the horizon

Having survived the burst of the dot-com bubble worldwide, the country's dot-cz business has been on the rise since 2003.

This year, local Web portals expect to receive some 750 million Kč ($29.6 million) from online advertisers. Half should come from revenues generated through priority listings in business databases.

Bajer said local portal business growth last year doubled the pace of Internet penetration of Czech households, which stood at about 35 percent.

Bajer said the growing use of the Internet in this country will soon trigger a competition war among Web portals, similar to the situation on the mobile telecommunications market.

"The key criteria determining each portal's success will be the quality of its search engine, e-mail and homepage," Bajer said.

At the moment, the three major portals rule the country's Web market. Telecommunications companies also run Web portals, but they focus mostly on telecommunication services.