Friends Reunited to shut down. What do you mean, 'is it still going?'

Friends Reunited is finally shutting shop - news that will surprise most people by the fact that it still exists today. The site was set up in 1999 primarily for users to connect with school friends, who they never liked and had no intention of meeting up with, but wanted to sneer at find out about. It was then flogged off in …

[Holleritho]

Many a marriage was made via FR

I know, personally, of three couples who have married (or settled down permanently) thanks to FR. One woman left her husband for her sixth-form flame, who evidently still carried a torch. Another said that the relationship worked better when the other half had the same background and knew all the old familiar things.

Actually, based on what I have just said, FR broke up at least one marriage.

I'd rather be the creators than ITV, at least as far s £££ go. At £30m goes a long way.

[Lee D]

Re: Many a marriage was made via FR

FR used to run a dating site too.

I met my ex-wife on there.

[getHandle]

Re: Many a marriage was made via FR

Before or after she was your wife??

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Many a marriage was made via FR

You forgot the third option, "during" the period she was his wife. Which might then explain why she was subsequently the "ex". :-O

[Mike 16]

Friends reunited put to bed?

Sounds like maybe they should have shut down the open bar at that reunion a bit earlier.

[Amorous Cowherder]

FR was full of people you didn't like, boasting about stuff they hadn't really done and continuing to make dicks of themselves just like they did when you had to put up with them 6 hours a day at school!

[Paul Crawford]

And how is that different from Facebook?

[Anonymous Coward]

"[...] full of people you didn't like, boasting about stuff they hadn't really done and continuing to make dicks of themselves [...]"

Friends Reunited spawned a wave of nostalgia that coincided with the creation of our old school memorabilia web site. That resulted in a Yahoo Groups forum. That meant there was enough worldwide publicity to organise a whole school reunion in 2002 - spanning cohorts from 30 years. The school itself had disappeared in the comprehensive reorganisations of the 1970s.

The Yahoo forum in the run-up to the reunion gave some indication that personalities hadn't changed much in some 40 years. It was interesting at the reunion on the campus to see old rivalries and frictions sparking immediately. One old Head Boy apparently hadn't adjusted to the fact that he no longer held any authority over his peers.

The surviving old teachers were interesting - although there was some reservation about the one who could never keep his hands off the VIth Form boys. The teachers were at a disadvantage of being never forgotten - but themselves usually could not remember the pupils. Each year of their career they would have had at least sixty new names and faces to remember. The pupils' faces were now generally much different - although a few looked as if they must have a portrait in the attic.One cohort went off to have curry together afterwards - undoubtedly a strong bond there.

Immediately after the reunion the Yahoo group went into terminal decline. It seems as if the nostalgia was satisfied. Those who had missed the reunion occasionally ask when there will be another one. The answer is "never". The Friends Reunited wave subsided. Most of the teachers are now dead - and attrition is setting in for the pupils too.

The memorabilia web site continues with occasional updates when someone new discovers the internet and Google. They look at the pictures, add names, and possibly memories. Although occasionally someone says "I think that is my younger self - but I'm not sure". Looking at the panoramic picture of several hundred pupils - it is a wonder that there are a few individual faces as yet unnamed. Why do none of their peers remember them? Sad.

The happiest days of your life? Possibly. Simple pleasures - cruel injustices - but certainly formative experiences.

[LesB]

Hold on...

That sounds more like LinkedIn

[BongoJoe]

Past its shelf life

Like many here I expect, I paid my £10 to get details of my old school chums and then there was no more use for it. So I am surprised it did last this long.

[gumbril]

Re: Past its shelf life

You paid? £10 pounds? What for? I used to login and update sometime after xmas for a couple of years, never thought of paying.. Didn't know they even took money

[Anonymous Coward]

But, but...

I used to work at Friends Reunited and I was trying to get in touch with some of my old colleagues...

[Martin Summers]

Re: But, but...

Presumably and sadly they are all in the local dole queue.

[John Brown (no body)]

Re: But, but...

Well, obviously you have a new idea for an innovative social networking site called Employees Reunited.

Or maybe Friends Reunited Reunited.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: But, but...

You should start a website: Friends Reunited Reunited

[Anonymous Coward]

Still was a lot better than facebook. No annoying gaming spam for a start.

[Anonymous Coward]

'Still was a lot better than facebook. No annoying gaming spam for a start.'

So, you can't remember the spam in the signatures of any contact emails they buffered via their site?.

I was running several MTAs at the time, and had to jig the filters to alllow the crap through, as I was sick of seeing messages destined to my PHB from his old flames.

Big Question: what happens to the (valuable) data they've accrued?

[TWB]

Well done the founders

For selling it when they did, I'm no great whizz at business but even at the time I thought it had had its day and I thought ITV were daft buying when they did. Maybe Facebook will go the same way.....(never joined, smug git etc etc)

[Anonymous Coward]

Never did hear back

from Biffo, Snooty, Dan, etc.

I believe Dennis went to the States.

[Pointer2null]

Killed by greed

It was good until it started charging a fiver to contact anyone. After that it was just a matter of time.

[werdsmith]

Re: Killed by greed

It was often a matter of time when you wanted to use the site. So popular at the time and on underpowered hosting, I often gave up.

[chivo243]

US equivalent?

Classmates dot com? Talk about spam-O-matic! I couldn't find the unsubscribe link fast enough...

[Steve K]

Schoolreunion.org.uk

I used to work with someone who showed me his almost-finished site "schoolreunion.org.uk" on the Friday in 1999 before Friends Reunited was splashed all over the Weekend Section of one of the broadsheets - and thus was effectively launched skywards with an effective first-mover monopoly.

That was a shame - so near.......

Steve

[Anonymous Coward]

Just did my bi-annual check to see if myspace.com is still there, yup it is. When did it turn into some kind of spotify/youtube thing though? The social network aspect of the site appears a much lower selling point these days.

[Steven Roper]

Myspace seems to be primarily used by musos and bands these days - it's a fantastic site to trawl through if you're looking for good indie, non-mainstream music.

[Anonymous Coward]

Worth MILLIONS!

It was then flogged off in 2005 to ITV for £175m - one year after Facebook launched.

Five years later it was sold to DC Thompson, publishers of The Beano, for £25m.

Two years later The Daily Chronicle-Bugle Observator bought it for £600k, mainly because of the user base. After scraping the e-mail addresses they tried to sell it for a cool million but got no buyers, and let it go for £50k to a company that manufactures decorative plates with cat motifs.

Another two years later and it was sold for £500 thousand to Smyth, Smyth and Forsythe, a local plumbing enterprise, who were bamboozled into investing in this "new internet thingie".

Yay for dot-com economics!

[AbelSoul]

Re: ..sold for £500 thousand to Smyth, Smyth and Forsythe..

Who in turn punted it to a certain Mr. Steptoe for a balloon, a lump of coal and a shiny fifty pence.

[Fink-Nottle]

Sic transit ...

I guess I was lucky. Instead of obnoxious school-mates, I found a ton of school photos related my prep school. I'd better grab those old football and cricket team shots before it's too late.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Sic transit ...

"I'd better grab those old football and cricket team shots before it's too late."

Better still - use them to set up a memorabilia web site.

My old school effectively disappeared in the 1970s. The memorabilia web site was set up in 2001 and still attracts a small number of old boys' submissions. Some are people new to the internet, or who have not previously searched for the school name. Others are people who revisit in a bout of nostalgia - and find they remember the name of yet another face on the pictures. It has a custom interactive naming system on all pictures. People can click on a face and submit new information about that person.

http://www.sths.org.uk

It is amazing what childhood ephemera people have stored in their lofts. Often parents kept children's school related things that were only rediscovered when clearing their house.

[Chris King]

Spiralling around the plughole for several years...

The first warning sign that your social networking site is in decline is when it changes ownership. That's when everything starts to change, and the original "buzz" that attracted you to the site disappears as the new management tries to monetize their new asset. The effect increases with each change of ownership.

The second warning sign is when they start taking the dates off everything - postings, user profiles etc - because they don't want people to realise that the site is dying on its arse and most users cleared off years ago. FR did that back in 2008, so it became impossible to tell when someone last logged in - and as people just created new accounts when they got locked out of Hotmail/Gmail etc you couldn't tell which profile was which. When I pointed this out to FR, they told me "What's your problem ? It's free to contact anybody now !"

Which brings me onto the third warning sign - user support is reduced to monkeys reading scripts and sending out canned replies, the original super-responsive-and-helpful folks having been replaced years ago. (This assumes they didn't walk out first in disgust at management stupidity)

Like everyone else, I'm amazed they survived this long given that Zuck stole their dinner money years ago.

[Mike Shepherd]

Pankhurst and his wife Julie made an estimated £30m from the original sale of the biz

Have they considered adoption? I'm not actually an orphan, but I'm sure that detail can be rectified.

[Zog_but_not_the_first]

So...

What happens to all the stuff posted there? Sold to the highest bidder, no doubt.

[nsld]

Re: So...

I got an email today saying they will be sending out a link to download all your stuff like pictures etc.

Then they will flog it all to the highest bidder once those clicked links have verified the active email addresses!

[Terry 6]

When they surredndered

At first people could share stories about their school days. But once they stopped users writing stories about the more unpleasant events/people for fear of being sued and made it into a kind of scrapbook a lot of the interest got lost and it became rather dull.

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: When they surredndered

"But once they stopped users writing stories about the more unpleasant events/people [...]"

The readers themselves often have rosy memories of school that they don't want upset. There are three aspects. One is embarrassing ex-pupils/teachers with escapades or nicknames they thought were long forgotten. The second is having only one source that seriously besmirches someone, usually a teacher, who is long since dead.

The third is a generally accepted negative view of a teacher who nonetheless was felt by some to be exceptionally gifted. The negative can be suitably conveyed by a "reading between the lines" that everyone affected readily comprehends.

Friends Reunited moderators would be unlikely to see the trend of several people all independently remembering the same event that would give it some veracity.

As an old school's web master I ask the author, or old boys from the period, whether they think some revelations should be made public. However the details are always filed so that they will be available to any future historian who is granted access to the city's archives. Out of some 3,000 old boys only two have ever asked for a nickname to be removed - even though the significance after 40 years did not appear obvious.

[Terry 6]

Re: When they surredndered

AC: All you say may be perfectly valid, but sadly this did suck the life out of the site. For better or worse a tame Friends Reunited was a dull one.

[Anonymous Coward]

It's my fault

I decided that it was time for Mr Coward to finally hike right into the centre of social (as they say in Hoxton) so I signed up to Friends Reunited. Unfortunately I have no friends to reunite with and the whole site crashed with an unhandled divison by zero error. Sorry.

[Oengus]

It had its uses

I remember finding out about this site not long after it started. I didn't sign up immediately because I was skeptical (still am of a lot of sites on the Internet). Eventually curosity got the better of me so I signed up with minimal detail. 2 weeks later a former classmate contacted me. He knew enough about me to be sure that he had the right person from the minimal information. I had lost touch with him when he moved after a divorce. He said that he had only signed up because he knew that I would eventually join. He had moved across the world and was now in England (I went to school with him in Australia). We caught up a few times but have drifted apart again.

Our senior year did organise a class reunion in 2006 (30 year) through this site. It was smaller than the one organised in 1988 (to coincide with Australia's bicentennial celebrations) that was done without the benefit of the Internet at all.

I might have to see if there is a 40 year reunion being organised...

[x 7]

so whats happening to the sister site - hotschoolgirlsreunited.com?

[John Brown (no body)]

It got sold and the new owners realised that due to serious aging they were likely to be sued under the Trade Descriptions Act and renamed it to muntersreunited.com. The membership is going down regularly.

[Anonymous Coward]

Fleeting fame

I used Friends Reunited a while ago.

I was contacted by one or two of the 'popular kids' from school.

THE POPULAR KIDS!

Wow.

They'd never have spoken to me at school.

; )

[Anonymous Coward]

Noooooooooooooooo!

If you have seen the film "If" you'll have an idea of what my school was like. The Masters (not teachers) wore capes and we had our own army. The Masters were mostly army officers who at the end of WW2 could become teachers with no qualifications whatsoever. They were either useless, perverts, mad or sadists. When asked if I wanted to attend a reunion I replied, "Only if I can bring a baseball bat!".

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0063850/?ref_=fn_al_tt_1

['s water music]

Re: Noooooooooooooooo!

People who enjoyed If also liked/may be further traumatised by

Good and Bad at Games (good use of the mentioned bat)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0285148/

Dutch Girls

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0089062/

as shown to impressionable boys by a subversive master (icon natch)

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: Noooooooooooooooo!

"The Masters were mostly army officers who at the end of WW2 could become teachers with no qualifications whatsoever. They were either useless, perverts, mad or sadists. "

That's interesting. We had several ex-services teachers in the 1950s. The physics ex-submariner was a well-liked benign chap who could be side-tracked into reminiscences.

The drawing office ex-naval man was a stickler for discipline and woe betide anyone who dropped their 2H pencil on the floor. Even asking for it to be sharpened too often was liable to be a thrashing offence. Before the lesson the boys lined up outside the classroom and presented their shoes and hands for a cleanliness inspection. Any failure in the former had boys further back in the queue nervously rubbing their shoes against backs of their long socks. It didn't help that our previous lesson had been in the grimy metalwork shop - and there were only cold water taps in the cloakroom. A remedial trip involved three flights of stairs.

The worst was a maths teacher. He would verbally abuse and hit boys round the head just for an incorrect or slow answer. No wonder some boys' minds just froze when asked a question as he loomed over them. When he left to be headmaster of another school there was a collective sigh of relief - with a tinge of pity for his new pupils. He was apparently ex-commando. It is an interesting question whether his temperament was as a result of his experiences - or a prerequisite for his selection for that elite group.

[Nigel Brown]

Still chuckling

that it was sold to the owners of The Beano.

[Doctor Syntax]

Re: Still chuckling

"the owners of The Beano"

Chuckle-ye-not.

They have a substantial online business including FindMyPast. One of their sites is GenesReunited. I took up their free trial long ago & backed out PDQ as they seemed not to be able to not send emails about the most unlikely matches of name.

[crediblywitless]

Was whoever-it-was at ITV that authorised the purchase in post for much longer? It was close to worthless even then.

[lorisarvendu]

So long and thanks for all the fish...

FR was incredibly innovative, and in the days of slow internet, more a bulletin board than anything. At the time I discovered it there was a fair bit of stories and photos on my old schools already on there, and I did manage to contact a few people from Juniors and Secondary. However as has already been pointed out elsewhere, FB kind of burst through the Social Networking door that FR had opened, and with the 'Book's ability to create groups and chat online, FR kind of became irrelevant. We owe Friends Reunited a huge debt of thanks, and its contribution to shaping the social internet we know today, but sadly by the very nature of its narrow remit (Reuniting Friends...umm...that's it) it couldn't survive, any more than a Black & White TV or a Steam Train can change with the times.

Actually the most surprising reunion I got from the site with was the founder himself - Steve Pankhurst. Back in the late '60s his mum used to be my child-minder!

[Anonymous Coward]

Re: So long and thanks for all the fish...

Actually the most surprising reunion I got from the site with was the founder himself - Steve Pankhurst. Back in the late '60s his mum used to be my child-minder!

Ditto...I used to work with both Julie and Steve. In fact I remember the time when they 1st hooked up.

My 1st lookup on FR was for colleagues at that company and I hit Steve's details with the tag line "started a small website. It will never catch on". Took me ages to work out what he was talking about.

[Anonymous Coward]

I used it once, paid my £10...

... Way back in 2004 to track down my no good delinquent father, who had fled to a nearby Emerald Isle. Who, true to form is still a no good a**hole.

It was nice to catch up and remind me that I am where I am despite his best efforts. Serves the twit right for following his school page.

(btw, it wasn't me who went stalking for him, it was my mum and her potentially homicidal thoughts)

Ahh, the memories.

[Dr. G. Freeman]

Went on there once, and found my Obituary.

Someone has posted that I had died the previous May of a heart attack.

Still get messages on Facebook from the school lot, when they find me, along the lines of "Heard you were dead." or from the Walking Durex advert drama queens "why are you stealing our old friends (RIP) identity"

[The Vociferous Time Waster]

My old science teacher

My old science teacher was handed down 8 years for being a nonce because the investigating officer used Friends Reunited to find other victims after one came forward.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2003/jun/18/newmedia.technology

[David Paul Morgan]

Funny things, social networking sites

I reckon one of the first 'modern' sites was out "out in the UK" which became "out everywhere" and was primarily for gay mane, at the time. Emphasis was on going out and meeting people via "coffee posses" which were very popular ISTR. All this was soon after 1995. It too has died a death mainly due to (a) Facebook & (b) hand-held dating apps.

I am in contact with quite a few of my primary and secondary school friends on Facebook.

The nicest part is definitely the old photos. Most of the nastiness seems to have gone as peopkle have mellowed with age :-)

[x 7]

Re: Funny things, social networking sites

"primarily for gay mane"

gay manes? Something to do with homo stallions?

[andyUK]

Re: Funny things, social networking sites

The coffee posses were no match for Grinder eh?! There's a surprise...

[andyUK]

I had a female ex-classmate who contacted me through FR because she felt really bad for flicking my ears throughout my whole secondary school life.

After being chased around the playground by 'bigger boys', incessant forehead 'spamming', dead arms and the omnipresent threat of being bogwashed, the occasional flick of my ears was the least of my worries!

ps: Has anyone ever actually been Bogwashed or is that an urban myth?

[x 7]

" Has anyone ever actually been Bogwashed"

yep, I did it once to two lads who were trying to beat me up in the school cloakrooms

they lost... both heads together in the (full) urinal trough as the autoflush ran........

tasty