BUSINESS WEEK - Oct 20 - As Facebook and other social networks explode in Eastern Europe, traditional media outlets are struggling to cash in on the trend. In September, Facebook had 271,000 users in Romania, but Hi5 boasted 2.3M users in a country of 21M. In the Czech Republic, the number of Facebook users has doubled in 2009 to 1.3M, more than a tenth of the country's population. Facebook, which hit the 300M-user mark this year globally, registered a 180% jump in the number of users in Eastern Europe in 2008 over the year before. In Poland, for example, the largest social network, Nasza-Klasa claims to be adding 20,000 new accounts daily. It had more than 11M active users at the end of 2008.Social networking has already stirred massive interest from advertisers. In the Czech Republic, the number of advertisers on Facebook has surged by 30% in 2009, according to Ataxo, an agency that sells ads on search engines. Paid advertising on social networks in the region is still marginal. In Romania, it accounts for only 1% of online advertising, a market that last year reached 20M euros. FULL ARTICLE @ BUSINESS WEEK