Friends Reunited

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Friends Reunited
Status Closing
Archiving status Upcoming...
Archiving type Unknown
IRC channel #friendsununited (on hackint)

Friends Reunited is a social network designed for people to reunited. It was the first social network to gain a large presence in the United Kingdom. The site initially started out as paid but then went to a free model. The site has changed hands several times throughout its life, and at one point was owned by ITV (a large British TV broadcaster). It was setup by a husband and wife duo, Steve and Julie Pankhurst. The site is mainly aimed at UK users.

History

The site was created due to the creators curiosity to discover what had happened to the friends he went to school with. The site was setup in July 2000, and was sold to British broadcaster ITV in December 2005. At this point, the site had over 15 million members. At this point, the site was exceeding the founder's aims and had been used for many more ways than it was designed for. It became one of the sites that employers checked before they hired someone. It had also been used by partners who wanted to extract revenge on their exes. Some users have been sued for the comments that they have made on the site.

By 2007, site was seeing a slowing in growth, with only a 1.2% year on year growth. The site was being drowned out by sites like Facebook and Bebo who had grown hugely in those years. Due to this, the creators of the site then started out with TV advertising.

In 2008, the site then dropped the subscription fee required of users in an attempt to regain control over the huge losses the site had taken. This was also an attempt to gain more users into the site.

Final Years

Friends Reunited was then sold in 2009, to an investment company (Brightsolid Limited) who are owned by a British publisher, DC Thomson. The sale was completed in 2010.

In 2011, the sites owners then said that the site was only worth £5.2 million, which is a fifth of the price that they had paid to ITV a few years before.

In the middle of 2012, the site was relaunched in order to change from a place where school friends would reunite, into a place where people could collect and share memories of the past.

Later in 2013, the sites owners said that the site was "no longer considered an integral part of the company".

Closure

On 18th January 2016, Friends Reunited announced that it was closing. They claimed that "the world was now a different place" and that they could no longer fit in and compete with companies like Facebook.

Sources