Friends Reunited
Friends Reunited is a portfolio of social networking websites based upon the themes of reunion with former friends, family-history research, dating and job-hunting.
Each site works on the principle of user-generated content by which registered users are able to post information about themselves that can be searched by others. People can contact each other via a double-blind email system, but only after paying a subscription.
The main Friends Reunited site is concerned with reuniting 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.
The website claims 18 million registered users, which it believes equates to "about half of all UK households with internet access"[1].
Friends Reunited branding has been attached to CD collections of nostalgic popular music, and television programmes broadcast on the ITV network, which owns the site. A book of members' stories was published in 2003 by Virgin Books.
History
The website was brainchild of Steve and Julie Pankhurst of Barnet,
Hertfordshire in 1999. Their curiosity of what old school friends were up to was inspired
them to develop the website, identifying a gap in the 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 Murphy was brought into Friends Reunited as the new Chief Executive in 2005 and the similar web site
SchoolFriends Australia &
FriendsReunited has become popular enough that its uses have gone beyond the intentions of its founders. According to the Register, potential employers use entries there to identify weak points in job applicants.[5] Friends Reunited has been used by bitter partners to get revenge on those who have abandoned them[6] and users have even been sued for the comments that they have made on Friends Reunited about other people[7]. Friends Reunited features prominently in Ben Elton's detective novel Past Mortem (2004). The website is set to launch a series of television advertisements for the first time, in early 2007[8].
References
- ^ Friends Reunited press office, 2006. Friends Reunited: reuniting people across the globe
- ^ 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
See also
External links
| ITV | |
|---|---|
| Companies | ITV plc · SMG plc · UTV Media plc · Channel Television Ltd · GMTV Ltd |
| ITV Franchises | Northern Scotland: Grampian · Central Scotland: Scottish · Scottish/English Border and Isle of Man: Border · Northern Ireland: UTV · North East England: Tyne Tees · Yorkshire/Lincolnshire: Yorkshire · North and North West England (Weekdays): Granada · North, Midlands, and North West England (Weekends): ABC · Wales and the West of England: TWW, WWN, ITSWW, HTV · Midlands: ATV, Central · East Anglia: Anglia · London (Weekdays): Rediffusion, Thames, Carlton · London (Weekends): ATV, LWT · South and South East England: Southern, TVS, Meridian · South West England: Westward, TSW, Westcountry · Channel Islands: Channel |
| National franchises | Breakfast: TV-am, GMTV/GMTV2 · Teletext: ORACLE, Teletext Ltd. |
| Non-franchise regions | STV · ITV Thames Valley · ITV London |
| Digital channels | ITV2 · ITV3 · ITV4 · CITV Channel · Men & Motors |
| News | ITN · ITV News |
| Brands | Sport: ITV Sport · Gaming: ITV Play · Children: CITV · Weather: ITV Weather · Mobile: ITV Mobile |
| Online | itv.com · ITV Local · Friends Reunited |
| See Also | ITV television presentation · ITV Digital |
| Independent
television regulators |
ITA (1955-72) · IBA (1972-91) · ITC (1991-2003) · Ofcom (2003-present) |
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