Friends Reunited closes… years after everyone thought it was already gone
Friends Reunited, one of the pioneering social media sites that allowed people to reconnect with old classmates and colleagues they'd lost touch with, has shut down after 15 years.
The site, which was set up in 2000, was one of the earliest of its kind and boasted tens of millions of users at its peak. It was bought by ITV for £175m in 2005, but sold to DC Thomson for just £25m four years later.
Founder Steve Pankhurst announced the decision to shut the site down after DC Thomson had decided to focus on its family history business instead.
He and co-founder Jason Porter attempted to revive it but the pair realised that there were too many problems – including the fact that many of the users' information was now out of date, and most critically, it was not covering its costs.
"Therefore, whilst it’s sad, I believe it’s time to move on and put FriendsReunited to bed. And I feel like I am the right person to do it," Pankhurst said in a post on Medium.
Instead the pair are launching a new network called Liife, through which users will be able to "ot your life through a series of key moments — these could be anything from holidays, parties, marriage, kids, gigs, sporting events etc".
"These could be past moments or moments that are happening now. We are trying to make a site that helps people share pictures and memories with only the people who shared them with you," Pankhurst said.
"One of my biggest gripes with Facebook are the times people tag or share photos of you and everyone sees them. And I too don't want to see everyone else’s group party shots. Plus the fact that they are lost in a mass of vacuous information. Don’t get me wrong, Facebook is fantastic for lots of things and keeping in touch, but as a tool to plot my life it's rather cumbersome."
Full features for Liife will be rolled out over the coming year, and users can already sign up on the platform as it stands now.
"Liife is on no way a replacement for FriendsReunited — they are completely different products," Pankhurst said. "FriendsReunited has had its day — it’s time to move on to a new Liife."