06 August 2009

Friends Reunited bought by Scottish publisher for £25 million

Social networking dinosaur Friends Reunited has been bought by Dundee-based publishing group DC Thomson with a surprise last minute offer of £25 million, almost £100 million less than ITV originally paid for the site in 2005.

This follows last week's news that ITV had finally given up on the social networking site, which has been greatly overtaken in recent years by more popular competitors such as MySpace, Facebook and most recently Twitter.

When ITV purchased Friends Reunited for £120 million at the end of 2005, it was rated the eighth most visited website in the UK, but according to Hitwise, it has since slipped to become the UK's fourteenth favourite social network.

Last year, a final attempt at salvaging the site's popularity saw ITV finally drop the subscription charge for Friends Reunited and rely instead on advertising revenue, but an £8 million advertising campaign proved unsuccessful in winning public attention back from competitors.

New owners DC Thompson, whose media portfolio includes popular weekly comics the Beano and the Dandy in addition to the Scots Magazine and numerous regional and national newspapers, has turned its attention to digital media in recent years.

Perhaps surprisingly, Brand Republic reports that the new owner is less interested in Friends Reunited as a social networking site, and is keen to rebrand it with a primary focus on genealogy, a UK obsession. Friends Reunited will sit alongside findmypast.com and others in DC Thompson's Brightsolid genealogy business.

According to Chris van der Kuyl, CEO of Brightsolid, they aim to use the site's recognisable, iconic status to create Britain's leading genealogy business. This new beginning promises a hopeful future for the continuing saga of Friends Reunited, even if its focus turns to the past.

Home | Careers | RSS | Contact Us | Newsletter

International sites: