28 July 2009 | Author: Katie Todd

ITV gives up on Friends Reunited

When it bought Friends United back in 2005 for £120m, ITV probably thought it was onto a winner. Social networking was still in its early stages and popular MySpace was already showing what could be done with the industry.

Today, ITV has spent around £175m on the website and made a tiny fraction of that back. That's after adding the chance to allow users to not only connect with friends but trace their family trees and contact relatives - and after switching to a free service rather than a paid one last year.

However, it seems as though it was too little too late as social networking megaliths Facebook and Twitter now dominate the waves and show no signs of slowing down. ITV finally decided to cut its losses in February and put Friends Reunited up for sale - but it seems so far that its best offer has just been a meagre £15m - a far cry from the original sum nine times higher.

The offer, which has come from private equity firm Oakley Capital, is being supported by internet entrepreneur Peter Dubens, who is known for having bought several small ISPs in the dotcom boom and selling them for vast sums in years following.

Is he up to the challenge of fixing the Friends United disaster, though? What with social networking rivals abound such as Facebook, Twitter and Bebo, it could take a lot of work to get Friends Reunited up to scratch - but if Dubens' reputation is anything to go by, he could be the one to pull off such a feat.

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