Friends Reunited. Does anybody actually use it anymore?

I get an email in the spam box (not a euphemism) off them every couple of weeks and every time I wonder how the poor sods are still in business.

Out of curiosity I had a look at my profile. When I last updated it I wasn’t married, didn’t have kids and lived in a different house.

Does anybody actually go on it anymore?

was always destined to die. 5 quid to get send an email to someone, get lost.

But it hasn’t died! Unless they are down to just one bloke sat in his bedroom sending emails to me.

Got me into all sorts of trouble.

Owned by DC Thompson, the Dandy publishers I see… Crikey.

No ex girlfriends popped up out of the ether to tell me they still think about me. It’s rubbish!

If you put in singletrackworld.com into the comparison thingy you’ll see it gets about as much traffic as this site.

Got me into all sorts of trouble.

Spam box? (this time it is a euphemism)

Their timeline seems to have gone like this…

Friends Reunited: give us money to contact your old friends.

Users obfuscate email addresses into their public profiles.

Facebook: contact your old friends for free!

Users jump ship en masse.

Friends Reunited: Wait, we’ve changed our minds, you can do it for free with us too.

Friends Reunited: Hello?

Compared with all internet users, the site appeals more to men; its visitors also tend to consist of childless people under the age of 45 who have postgraduate educations and browse from work

Fascinating that 13.1% of STW traffic comes from India (apparently!)

Stats = bogus.

Logged in a while back just for interest. Seems they removed a whole load of features, so not sure what they think their USP is now.

Even half the school photos are actually “here’s me on holiday in cancun getting wasted on tequilla with my new mates”, rather than pics actually related to the school or its former attendees.

Only went on there cos I was nuking my profile from every non-essential social network / forum / etc. Will probably nuke that account too. FR serves no useful purpose these days.

More stats from that site…

Friendsreunited

Audience Snapshot

Based on internet averages, friendsreunited.co.uk is visited more frequently by males who are in the age range 55-64 and have no college education

STW

Audience Snapshot

Based on internet averages, singletrackworld.com is visited more frequently by males who are in the age range 35-44, are graduate school educated and browse this site from work.

the site appeals more to men; its visitors also tend to consist of childless people under the age of 45 who have postgraduate educations and browse from work

Four out of five 🙂

Moved several times, met my future wife, had children and taken up mountain biking since the last time i looked at it.

Previously got contacted by and had a great if odd fling with somone who I vaguely knew of from Uni.

Fascinating that 13.1% of STW traffic comes from India (apparently!)

Offshore IT workers isn’t it. Trying to prove they can do exactly the same job as UK based IT staff. 😆

History was more like this:

Site launched

Goes mad after being mentioned on Steve Wright Radio 2 show

Business is profit making and cash generative as subscribers pay subscriptions for more than one year to the surprise of management.

Business is sold to ITV for £120 million plus earn out of £50 million

School leavers no longer use it as Facebook has taken over so new customers are non existent, ITV decide to drop subscriptions in the hope of generating new members. Does not work and income severely dented.

Business branches into new areas such as ancestry searches, which is where the value in the business is now.

ITV refocusses on core TV services and sells to DC Thompson for £20 million.