Post by Deleted on Feb 27, 2016 15:11:44 GMT
Remember the early days? There was MySpace and Friends Reunited where nowadays there are dozens of social media sites. Well after seventeen years on the electronic highway, FU is hanging up its boots...
Did it help you meet an old school friend? It was too early for me, I didn't know there was an internet until 2006.
Friends Reunited - one of the UK's first social networks - has announced it will soon close. One of its founders Steve Pankhurst explained in an email that the platform was still used by "a handful of members" but that it was "no longer used for the purpose it was built for".
Friends Reunited launched in the year 2000 and was bought by broadcaster ITV for £175m ($250m) in 2005. On Twitter - another social network which has helped to clobber Friends Reunited - many cheeky commentators said they were surprised it hadn't closed down years ago.
Conceived in the late nineties, the website’s aim was to reconnect old school friends so that they could judge each other mercilessly based on the size of their car engines and the SAT scores of their offspring. Although for a while the idea was great, after a while it became clear that the premise of reuniting ‘friends’ who didn’t actually need reuniting, was going to be its own downfall.
‘It was really good at first’, says Andy Greene of Basildon, Essex. ‘I’d decant a tinny into a pint glass, plug in the modem, and then spend my evenings taking the piss out of Barry Horder for the dodgy mullet he sported in 1974. Those were the days!
‘The problems started when I befriended Barry on FaceBook,’ says Greene, ‘I realised that the small amount of amusement I got from his dodgy barnet wasn’t worth the five hundred Candy Crush notifications a day.
‘I knew there was a reason we didn’t keep in touch. He used to hound me to play cat’s cradle at lunchtimes when I was more of a Subbuteo man.’
‘It died a death, and we’re all sad to see it go.’ says marketing coordinator Harry Gilliam.
‘We recognise that by reuniting ‘friends’ in the loosest sense, we’ve created a problem, but we are willing to fix it with out new site ‘Bellends Uninvited.
‘Our vision is that this is going to be a safe space for people who really don’t care what certificate Helen Bosworth’s child got in ‘golden assembly’, or whether Gregory Wong got the dog in the divorce settlement. Users will be able to delete all school ‘friends’ from their FaceBook profiles, remove themselves from chain email lists, and unsubscribe from all of those awful Christmas card round robins.’
I know it’s dubious, but the alternative is a barren online wasteland with spambots trying to sell each other hair growth boosting shampoo and lycra control pants – hey actually I think I might have hit on an idea! I shall call it e-buy.’
Friends Reunited launched in the year 2000 and was bought by broadcaster ITV for £175m ($250m) in 2005. On Twitter - another social network which has helped to clobber Friends Reunited - many cheeky commentators said they were surprised it hadn't closed down years ago.
Conceived in the late nineties, the website’s aim was to reconnect old school friends so that they could judge each other mercilessly based on the size of their car engines and the SAT scores of their offspring. Although for a while the idea was great, after a while it became clear that the premise of reuniting ‘friends’ who didn’t actually need reuniting, was going to be its own downfall.
‘It was really good at first’, says Andy Greene of Basildon, Essex. ‘I’d decant a tinny into a pint glass, plug in the modem, and then spend my evenings taking the piss out of Barry Horder for the dodgy mullet he sported in 1974. Those were the days!
‘The problems started when I befriended Barry on FaceBook,’ says Greene, ‘I realised that the small amount of amusement I got from his dodgy barnet wasn’t worth the five hundred Candy Crush notifications a day.
‘I knew there was a reason we didn’t keep in touch. He used to hound me to play cat’s cradle at lunchtimes when I was more of a Subbuteo man.’
‘It died a death, and we’re all sad to see it go.’ says marketing coordinator Harry Gilliam.
‘We recognise that by reuniting ‘friends’ in the loosest sense, we’ve created a problem, but we are willing to fix it with out new site ‘Bellends Uninvited.
‘Our vision is that this is going to be a safe space for people who really don’t care what certificate Helen Bosworth’s child got in ‘golden assembly’, or whether Gregory Wong got the dog in the divorce settlement. Users will be able to delete all school ‘friends’ from their FaceBook profiles, remove themselves from chain email lists, and unsubscribe from all of those awful Christmas card round robins.’
I know it’s dubious, but the alternative is a barren online wasteland with spambots trying to sell each other hair growth boosting shampoo and lycra control pants – hey actually I think I might have hit on an idea! I shall call it e-buy.’
Did it help you meet an old school friend? It was too early for me, I didn't know there was an internet until 2006.
