where did it all go wrong for friends reunited?

ITV have announced the sale of friends reunited at a price of £25 million, taking a £145 million hit from the price the paid of £170 million in 2005.

Undoubtedly facebook took a big slice of their market when it opened to the general public but friends reunited was very slow to fight back. It took them a long time to drop their subscription model, which restricted you from contacting old friends through the site unless you paid up. They were also very slow to embrace social networking functionality. Apart from your profile, there was little user generated content & certainly nothing that could be updated on a frequent basis by users. Add to that a clunky site design & it's no wonder the site began to lose ground.

I do think it's a wasted opportunity & perhaps something the new owners are going to try & rectify. The one big advantage that friends reunited has is that it anchors you geographically, to your old schools and workplaces. As a result, for the less tech-savvy, it's much easier to find people on friends reunited than it is on facebook.