Friends Reunited - a sign of the times

Friends Reunited, the social networking site that ruined a thousand marriages, could finally be set to part company with ITV.

According to reports, a private equity firm is likely to acquire the site from the ailing TV channel for about £15m - a far cry from the £175m ITV paid for it back in December 2005.

In many ways Friends Reunited stands as a cautionary tale for what might happen if you buy into the social networking dream without understanding the risks.

The site has been struggling to beat off free rivals such as Facebook, Bebo and MySpace in the social networking sphere. It eventually dropped its subscription-based model to go ads-based last year but even this failed to attract users.

For ITV, it was a disastrous attempt to enter an area it really had no great track record or expertise in. For Friends Reunited it was a lesson in trying to charge users for a social networking service.

And for those social media rival sites who have managed to outdo one of their own this time around, the lesson is beware, for if you fail to innovate and keep your users happy, you could well turn into the next Friends Reunited.

The only party set to really benefit from the whole sorry tale, aside from husband and wife team Steve and Julie Pankhurst who founded the company, is serial entrepreneur Peter Dubens, who could be getting himself the bargain of the year if the £15m bid is accepted.

Then again, the man who made a fortune after selling his Pipex business to Tiscali, may live to regret this particular move.

27 Jul 2009