Facebook Reunited

By Sam Smith on Mar 4, 08 11:16 AM in Creative industries

Remember Friends Reunited? Before Social Networking was a buzz word and in the days when MySpace was microscopic, Friends Reunited were blazing a trail that saw the company valued at astronomical sums and spawned a breed of copycat sites and spin-off merchandising.

And then it all seemed to fizzle out. The site is still up and running and listing over 19 million members - myself being one - but until just now, I hadn't checked the site for a couple of years. I knew where it was if I wanted it but after the initial excitement faded, I quickly lost interest.

Along with many other industry watchers I wrote about the fall from grace of MySpace and the rise of Facebook (and other social networking sites) in its place. I even went as far as to predict that Twitter wouldn't really catch on in the UK.

So, with February's announcement of Facebook's first fall in visitor numbers in 17 months (and the timely release of this t-shirt), are we about to see Facebook go the way of Friends Reunited or does the Facebook phenomenon still have legs? It certainly has more reasons to visit than Friends Reunited but do the numbers speak volumes?