Friends Reunited
| 180px | |
| Web address | www |
|---|---|
| Slogan | Millions of memories all in one place |
| Commercial? | Yes |
|
Type of site
|
Social networking service |
| Registration | Optional |
| Available in | English |
| Users | 23.8 million (2010)[1] |
| Owner | DC Thomson |
| Launched | July 1, 2000 |
|
Alexa rank
|
1,210 (UK) |
| Current status | online |
Friends Reunited is 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 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]
Contents
History
Establishment
The website was conceived by Steve and Julie Pankhurst of Barnet, Hertfordshire and friend Jason Porter in 1999. 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.[4] Friends Reunited was officially launched in July 2000. By the end of the year, it had 3,000 members, and a year later this had increased to 2.5 million.[5] Ex-Financial Times executive Michael Murphy was brought into Friends Reunited as the new chief executive in 2005 and the similar web site SchoolFriends Australia & Findakiwi New Zealand was rebranded and merged with the UK site[citation needed].
ITV ownership
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.[6]
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.[7] Friends Reunited has been used by bitter partners to exact revenge on those who have abandoned them[8] and users have been sued for comments made on Friends Reunited about other people.[9] 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.[10]
In the UK, Friends Reunited was accused of being left behind by competitors, primarily Facebook and Bebo (see others in list of social networking sites), with growth of only 1.2% year-on-year in 2007.[by whom?] By comparison, Facebook's UK traffic increased by 2393% and Bebo's by 173%. The site was described[by whom?] as "bogged down by an oppressive design, ad-heavy services and payment barriers at every turn". However, 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"[11]
In March 2008, the site dropped the subscription fee required to contact members in a bid to regain losses of 47% of unique users and market share from more dominant social networking sites.[2][12] The site made a profit of £22 million in 2007 - though its market valuation had fallen sharply from the £175 million paid by ITV in 2005, while those of competitors had increased dramatically.[13] Visitor traffic declined sharply since September 2007 and the site is now dwarfed by competitor sites in the UK market.[14]
Brightsolid ownership
On 4 March 2009, ITV announced that it would sell Friends Reunited as part of wider restructuring and disposal of non-core assets.[15] In August 2009 it was announced that Friends Reunited had been sold for £25 million to brightsolid Limited,[16] a firm which is owned by DC Thomson, a Dundee-based publisher.[17] 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 it paid to ITV two years previously.[18]
The site was relaunched in March 2012,[19] with the focus shifting from reuniting with school friends to being a place where people collect and share memories of the past.
On the 1st of October 2013, under the guidance of new CEO Annelies van den Belt, Brightsolid Online Publishing was rebranded as DC Thomson Family History, 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 is to be re-incubated elsewhere in the DC Thomson company.[20]
See also
References
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- ↑ BBC News, 13 January 2003. Friends Reunited comes of age
- ↑ "Friends Reunited - interfere with nature at your peril",The Register, January 2, 2002
- ↑ BBC News, 6 December 2005. ITV buys Friends Reunited website
- ↑ The Register, June 24, 2003. Friends Reunited gives third reference.
- ↑ The Observer, May 5, 2002. Web hath no fury like a woman scorned
- ↑ The Register, May 21, 2002. Friends Reunited user in libel payout
- ↑ Brand Republic, 3 January 2007. Friends Reunited appeals to animal lovers in TV ad push
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Facebook suffers from social networking slowdown - Networks - Breaking Business and Technology News at silicon.com
- ↑ Looking at internet company valuations - 25 March 2008
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ Lua error in package.lua at line 80: module 'strict' not found.
- ↑ [1] brightsolid acquires Friends Reunited]
- ↑ BBC News, 6 August 2009. ITV in £25m Friends Reunited sale
- ↑ BBC News, 15 December 2011. DC Thomson's Friends Reunited continues fall in value
- ↑ BBC News, Friends Reunited relaunches site with 'nostalgia' focus
- ↑ http://www.brightsolid.com/brightsolid-group/latest-news/recent-news/the-future-for-family-history-is-digital.html
