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Friends Reunite
Type of site
Social networking service
Available inEnglish
OwnerDC Thomson
URLwww.friendsreunited.co.uk
CommercialYes
RegistrationOptional
Users23.8 million (2010)[1]
Launched30 June 2000; 24 years ago (2000-06-30)
Current statusShut down as of 26 February 2016

Friends Reunited was a portfolio of social networking websites based upon the themes of reunion with research, dating and job-hunting. The first and eponymous website was created by a husband-and-wife team in the classic back-bedroom Internet start-up; it was the first online social network to achieve prominence in Britain, and it weathered the dotcom bust.

Each site worked on the principle of user-generated content through which registered users were able to post information about themselves which could be searched by other users. A double-blind email system allowed contact between users. Formerly, the site cost £7.50 per year to use but it was later free of charge.[2]

The main Friends Reunited site aimed to reunite people who had in common a school, university, address, workplace, sports club or armed service; the sister site Genes Reunited enabled members to pool their family trees and identify common ancestors; the Dating and Jobs sister sites linked members with similar attributes, interests and/or locations.

Friends Reunited branding was attached to CD collections of nostalgic popular music, and television programmes broadcast on the ITV network, which owned the site until August 2009. A book of members' stories was published in 2003 by Virgin Books, and a song about (and named after) the site was released by The Hussys in 2006.

Following ITV's sale of the site to DC Thomson's Brightsolid subsidiary in 2009, the company relaunched Friends Reunited in March 2012 with a new emphasis on nostalgia and memories.[3]

On 26 February 2016 the website closed down, after 16 years of operation.[4][5][6][7]

History

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Establishment

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The website was conceived by Julie and Steve Pankhurst of Barnet, Hertfordshire and their friend Jason Porter in 1999.[8][9][10][11] Julie Pankhurst's curiosity about the current status of old school friends inspired her to develop the website, exploiting a gap in the UK market following the success of US website Classmates.com.[12] Friends Reunited was officially launched in June 2000. By the end of the year, it had 3,000 members, and a year later this had increased to 2.5 million.[13]

ITV ownership

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By December 2005, Friends Reunited had over 15 million members and was bought by British TV company ITV plc for £120 million ($208 million), plus further payments of up to £55 million based on its performance up to 2009.[14]

Friends Reunited had become popular enough that its uses went beyond the intentions of its founders. According to the Register, potential employers used entries to screen job applicants.[15] Friends Reunited has been used by bitter partners to exact revenge on those who have abandoned them[16] and users have been sued for comments made on Friends Reunited about other people.[17] Friends Reunited features prominently in Ben Elton's detective novel Past Mortem (2004). The website launched a series of television advertisements for the first time in early 2007.[18]

In 2007, ITV Chairman Michael Grade described the site as "the sweet spot" of the internet and stated that "Friends Reunited is one of the great undersung jewels in the crown ... one of the most important bits of ITV going forward, a massive presence, and profitable"[19] That year the site made a profit of £22 million, but its market valuation had fallen sharply from the £175 million paid by ITV in 2005,[20] and it achieved growth in UK traffic of only 1.2%,[21] compared to Facebook’s 2,393% and Bebo's 173%.[citation needed]

In March 2008, after losing 47% of unique users in the previous 12 months,[2][22] the site dropped the subscription fee required to contact members, but the decline continued.[23]

Brightsolid ownership

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On 4 March 2009, ITV announced that it would sell Friends Reunited as part of wider restructuring and disposal of non-core assets.[24] In August 2009 it was announced that Friends Reunited had been sold for £25 million to Brightsolid Limited,[25] a firm owned by Dundee-based publisher DC Thomson.[26] Following regulatory approval, the sale was completed on 25 March 2010. On 15 December 2011, DC Thomson estimated that Friends Reunited was worth only £5.2 million, a fifth of the price paid two years previously.[27]

The site was relaunched in March 2012,[28] with the focus shifting from reuniting with school friends to being a place where people collect and share memories of the past.

On 1 October 2013, under the guidance of new CEO Annelies van den Belt, Brightsolid Online Publishing was rebranded as DC Thomson Family History (which, in turn, became Findmypast), focusing on its core family history brands. As a result of this, Friends Reunited was no longer considered an integral part of the direction and was to be re-incubated elsewhere in the DC Thomson company.[29]

On 18 January 2016, Friends Reunited revealed that it would be closing down the website after 16 years of operation.[4]

See also

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References

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  1. ^ Durrani, Arif (6 September 2010). "Ten-year-old Friends Reunited in need of guidance". Media Week. Archived from the original on 21 January 2013. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
  2. ^ a b "Friends Reunited axes fee". Manchester Evening News. 27 April 2010 [Updated 12 January 2013].
  3. ^ Lee, David (27 March 2012). "Friends Reunited relaunches site with 'nostalgia' focus". BBC News. Archived from the original on 27 March 2012. Retrieved 27 March 2012.
  4. ^ a b Kleinman, Zoe (18 January 2016). "Friends Reunited website to close down". BBC News. Archived from the original on 18 January 2016. Retrieved 18 January 2016.
  5. ^ "Friends Reunited - the sunset of an era". Friends Reunited. Archived from the original on 28 December 2017. Retrieved 11 January 2018.
  6. ^ "R.I.P. Friends Reunited". BBC News. 26 February 2016. Archived from the original on 20 July 2017. Retrieved 11 January 2018.
  7. ^ Stewart, Rebecca (18 January 2016). "Friends Reunited to shut down as co-founder says site 'has had its day'". The Drum. Archived from the original on 12 January 2018. Retrieved 11 January 2018.
  8. ^ Dutta, Kunal (25 March 2012). "Steve Pankhurst: Happy to be the Victor Meldrew of technology". The Independent. London. Archived from the original on 22 January 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  9. ^ Stanford, Peter (22 January 2016). "Steve Pankhurst, Friends Reunited millionaire: 'Geeky techies are the new celebrities'". The Daily Telegraph. London. Archived from the original on 25 January 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  10. ^ "Friends Reunited website to close down". BBC News. Archived from the original on 22 January 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  11. ^ Hamill, Jasper (18 January 2016). "Friends Reunited has closed down: Founder Steve Pankhurst blames Facebook for 'sad decline' of website". Daily Record. Glasgow. Archived from the original on 21 January 2016. Retrieved 25 January 2016.
  12. ^ BBC News, 13 January 2003. Friends Reunited comes of age Archived 29 December 2008 at the Wayback Machine
  13. ^ "Friends Reunited - interfere with nature at your peril" Archived 10 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine, The Register, 2 January 2069
  14. ^ BBC News, 6 December 2005. ITV buys Friends Reunited website Archived 17 December 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  15. ^ The Register, 24 June 2003. Friends Reunited gives third reference Archived 10 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine.
  16. ^ The Observer, 5 May 2002. Web hath no fury like a woman scorned Archived 20 September 2016 at the Wayback Machine
  17. ^ The Register, 21 May 2002. Friends Reunited user in libel payout Archived 10 August 2017 at the Wayback Machine
  18. ^ Brand Republic, 3 January 2007. Friends Reunited appeals to animal lovers in TV ad push Archived 7 February 2007 at the Wayback Machine
  19. ^ Tryhorn, Chris (7 March 2007). "Michael Grade on the big issues for ITV". The Guardian. London. Archived from the original on 6 March 2016.
  20. ^ Looking at internet company valuations - 25 March 2008
  21. ^ Lohumi, Kalpana (15 November 2019). "Friends Reunion Special is finally in development at HBO Max (Exclusive)". thefrend. Retrieved 21 November 2019.
  22. ^ "Facebook suffers from social networking slowdown - Networks - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com". Archived from the original on 27 April 2008.
  23. ^ "friendsreunited.co.uk Site Overview". alexa.com. Archived from the original on 17 June 2008.
  24. ^ "ITV falls out with Friends Reunited". Alphr. Archived from the original on 5 March 2009.
  25. ^ "brightsolid acquires Friends Reunited" (Press release). brightsolid. 5 March 2010. Archived from the original on 5 March 2010.
  26. ^ BBC News, 6 August 2009. ITV in £25m Friends Reunited sale Archived 10 August 2009 at the Wayback Machine
  27. ^ BBC News, 15 December 2011. DC Thomson's Friends Reunited continues fall in value Archived 28 October 2014 at the Wayback Machine
  28. ^ BBC News, Friends Reunited relaunches site with 'nostalgia' focus Archived 27 March 2012 at the Wayback Machine
  29. ^ "Latest News". Bright Solid. Archived from the original on 4 October 2013.
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