Friends Reunited — once the multimillion pound poster child of the social-networking generation — is now little more than an online time capsule from 2001, with swathes of profiles that haven’t been updated in years. The site recently sponsored a TV programme on ITV (Friends Reunited’s parent company), about a woman who came out of a coma after 18 years. I’ll be amazed if Friends Reunited comes back to life that quickly.
Annoyingly, Collins doesn’t connect that situation with another nugget of information about Friends Reunited:
I’ve yet to see any evidence that Facebook can generate significant profit from its millions of users. There’s no charge to use the site or make contact with friends — even Friends Reunited had the gumption to tap you for a fiver if you wanted to get in touch with the girl you used to ping rubber bands at in Geography lessons.
The charging structure must surely be one of the principal causes of FR’s decline. While it’s true that Facebook as yet shows no sign of having a clear, reliable and long-term revenue model (something that Collins gets spot on through his piece), ITV’s problems with Friends Reunited show that choosing the wrong revenue model can kill your site faster than any competitor ever can.
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