Friends Reunited is a portfolio of social networking websites based upon the themes of reunion with research (separate site Genes Reunited ), 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 works on the principle of user-generated content through which registered users are able to post information about themselves which may be searched through by other users. A double-blind email system allows contact between users. Formerly, the site cost £7.50 per year to use but is now free.[1]
The main Friends Reunited site aims to reunite people who have in common a school, university, address, workplace, sports club or armed service; the sister site Genes Reunited enables members to pool their family trees and identify common ancestors; the Dating and Jobs sister sites link members with similar attributes, interests and/or locations.
Friends Reunited branding has been 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.
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The website was conceived by Steve and Julie Pankhurst of Barnet, Hertfordshire 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.[2] 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.[3] 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. By December 2005, Friends Reunited had over fifteen 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.[4]
Friends Reunited had become popular enough that its uses have gone beyond the intentions of its founders. According to the Register, potential employers use entries to screen job applicants.[5] Friends Reunited has been used by bitter partners to exact revenge on those who have abandoned them[6] and users have been sued for comments made on Friends Reunited about other people.[7] 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.[8]
Friends Reunited and owners ITV have been accused of being left behind by competitors in the UK, primarily Facebook and Bebo (see others in list of social networking sites), with growth of only 1.2% year-on-year in 2007. By comparison, Facebook's UK traffic increased by 2393% and Bebo's by 173%. The site has been described as 'bogged down by an oppressive design, ad-heavy services and payment barriers at every turn'. However, ITV Chairman Michael Grade has 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'[9] 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.[1][10] The site made a profit of £22 million in 2007 - though its market valuation has fallen sharply from the £175 million paid by ITV in 2005, while those of competitors have increased dramatically.[11] Visitor traffic has declined sharply since September 2007 and the site is now dwarfed by competitor sites in the UK market.[12]
On 4 March 2009, ITV announced that it would sell Friends Reunited as part of wider restructuring and disposal of non-core assets.[13] In August 2009 it was announced that Friends Reunited had been sold for £25 million to brightsolid Limited,[14] a firm which is owned by DC Thomson, a Dundee-based publisher.[15] 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 they paid to ITV two years previously.[16]
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