Kev Kennedy's Blog

Friends Reunited? Remember that?

Last week the headlines on the BBC website were about someone paying £25 million for Friends Reunited.

You remember Friends Reunited? It was one of the first social networking sites, that allowed you to put some details on about yourself for your old school friends to see. And if you paid (paid!) you were able to get their email addresses and email them.

I consoled myself that everyone in my school year was as cheap as I was and couldn't be bothered to pay, and that's why I never got any emails. Or maybe I was less popular at school than I thought I was.

FR was big news back in the day. There were a few stories about childhood sweethearts ditching their families in order to "get reacquainted" with their long-lost first loves. But then MySpace came along, and Facebook, and even Twitter, and I honestly thought FR had died. But apparently not. Apparently it's been sold to new owners, although what their business plan is going to be I couldn't possibly tell you. FR may have 'millions' of 'users' but I don't know anyone who's used it other than to creat an account, put on a few details and then never return.

The sting in the tale though is that a couple of years ago the people who sold FR for £25 million bought it for £170 million. That some corporation was willing to lose that much money on it is kind of an indicator that there's no future in the site.

Sometimes the fact that something is a real 'bargain' is an indicator that it's no bargain at all. 

Created on Mon 10th August 2009 09:15