RIP Friends Reunited? Part Deux.
The big (general-public-friendly) tech news today is that ITV have managed to sell Friends Reunited. The original “social networking” website was bought by BrightSolid Ltd for 25 million quid. You may recall that back in February when the FT revealed that ITV were looking for a buyer i had this to say…
My money is on ITV selling it (at a massive loss) to some relatively unknown outfit and the brand just disappearing completely within 6 months of the sale…
Well, i got the massive loss bit right (somewhere in the region of £100million-150million) and i reckon that i didn’t do so badly on the “relatively unknown outfit” call either. I’ve never heard of BrightSolid (have you?) but apparently they’re a subsidiary of publishers DC Thomson (Beano comics, etc) and mainly deal with online genealogy stuff. Presumably that means they’ve bought FR for the “GenesReunited” customers more than anything else. As for my prediction that FR will disappear completely within 6 months of any sale, well, the clock is now ticking… Call back next February to see just how wrong I am.
Now please excuse me while i go and delete my Friends Reunited account.