Friendsreunited is a website where you can search for old school friends and if you find them you can make contact with them. The idea behind this website is so simple that not only is it ingenious, it is also the sort of website that everyone wishes they had thought of and designed first.
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A review by micksheff on Friendsreunited.co.uk January 5th, 2006
Author's product rating:
Download Speed of Results
Fast
Advanced Search Features
Good
Accuracy of Search Results
Good
Ability to Search by Images / Sound / Video
Good
Ability to Search by Phrase or Question
Satisfactory
Advantages:
Free membership, Hours of Fun
Disadvantages:
£7 . 50 per year for full membership
Recommend to potential buyers:
yes
Full review
Friendsreunited is a website where you can search for old school friends and if you find them you can make contact with them. The idea behind this website is so simple that not only is it ingenious, it is also the sort of website that everyone wishes they had thought of and designed first.
I joined this site back in December 2001 after bumping into an old school friend (in the street not online) who told me that she had just joined this site and her knowledge of what most of my old school friends were doing with their lives astounded me to the point where I knew that I had to take a look, and ever since this time I have revisited this site frequently to feed my curiosities.
In December 2005 friendsreunited.co.uk was sold to the UK broadcasting company ITV for £120 million, which considering that this website was created in the bedroom of a semi detached house in Barnet, North London in the July of 1999 must make it one of the greatest Internet success stories of all time.
If you have yet to discover this site then I suggest that you visit http://www.freindsreunited.co.uk and follow the simple online registration process which should only take up a few minutes of your time.
THE REGISTRATION PROCESS
This is free and commences by clicking on the "Register for free" tab which will appear in a nice prominent spot on your screen if you are visiting this site for the first time.
The first section of this process will ask you to complete your personal details including not only your name, email address and a chosen password, but also your maiden name (or the name you had at school) and there is even an option to add your nickname.
Following on from here you enter your date of birth and your mobile phone number which is an optional choice. Personally I left this section blank as I prefer to be contacted via email.
Once this general stuff is complete and out of the way it is then a case of choosing your membership level. There are two different levels of membership available:
Level 1 - This is the totally free option and the one that I would recommend that all first time users of this site select. This level of membership will allow you to access all areas of the website and browse all of the different categories. You will be able to search all of the former pupils in your school or college class and read all of their personal profiles telling you about what they are up to. You will not however be able to view their email addresses or telephone numbers and therefore direct contact with an old friend will not be possible.
Level 2 - All Level 1 members will find a tab on the left hand site of their screen which says "Upgrade membership." Providing you have found some old friends that you wish to contact then clicking this button is the next step.
Membership costs £7.50 per year and provides you with the facility to send an unlimited amount of emails to anyone who is registered on the site. It also allows you access to a forum which is basically a message board where you can post any message to your school. This is useful if you are looking for someone not registered with the site as it is likely that there will be someone out there who is a member who will know of their whereabouts.
The forum is also used to organise school reunions which take place at a surprisingly frequent rate.
Level 2 membership also allows you to post a photo of yourself (old or new) in your profile and also browse the photos of other members.
THE SITE LAYOUT
The layout of the site is simple but more than adequate, although it has changed quite a few times since I have been a member.
There are numerous tabs across the top of the screen and down the sides. The most useful of these are the search tabs down the left hand side, but there are other sections too including your personal homepage which is set as your default page.
Your homepage has details referring to your profile. It is in this section that you can read and edit what you have written about yourself and view your messages.
SEARCHING THE SITE
Searching the site for old friends is the main reason why most people sign up to this site and this can be done in many different ways.
Searching for school friends is the most popular method of finding someone on the site. Entering the name of the school you attended and the year that you left will display a list of everyone in your school year who is registered with the site. If your maths aren't too good then the site will calculate the year you left from your date of birth but remember this may be one year out either way and will not apply if you attended several different schools.
If the school you attended is not listed then there is an option to add it. However since there are over 12 million members on this site the chances are you will find your school listed and many people who you remember from your past.
I was surprised to find that my school was listed and I was even more amazed to discover that almost 100 people were listed from my year, since this must have been almost 50% I was to say the least a little gob smacked, especially as I scrolled down the list and remembered many of them. I left my comprehensive school in 1986 so that's quite an achievement!
It is now also possible to search in the same way for college and university friends, the Armed Forces, Workplaces, teams and Clubs, and even search for old neighbours by entering a street name.
It must be stressed however that the more information that you include in your own personal profile will not just improve the search ability of the site but will also increase your chances of someone searching for you actually finding you.
On my profile I have now listed all of the schools that I attended from Infants to Comprehensive, the College and University that I attended with dates and all of the addressees I have lived at and the companies that I have worked for, again with approximate dates.
CONCLUSION
I have spent hours of fun on this site and have now successfully contacted around 30 different people on an individual one to one basis. My best school at friend now lives in Pittsburgh, USA and I have remained in regular touch via email. I also attended my first school reunion a couple of years ago too.
I think that this website is a great place to discover what happened to all of your school friends and even find out if the ugliest boy or girl in your class ever married. The only thing that puzzles me is why so many of the dunces from my year seem to have such high profile careers so it does sometimes make me wonder if everyone is completely honest about the information that they put in their profiles.
On a final note I will finish by saying that I have now been a paid Level 2 member of friendsreunited.co.uk for the past two years and I am now seriously considering whether to renew my membership again or not when it becomes due. At the moment I am thinking maybe not as I now feel that I know enough about most of the people I was originally curious about and the few old friends I have made contact with I am now in contact with independently of this site.
If you haven't yet visited this site I would definitely recommend that in the very least you make yourself a Level 1 member and guarantee yourself hours of fun.
Advantages: Very comprehensive database of schools, colleges and workplaces. Disadvantages: You need to remember to pay GBP 5.00 each year.
When I moved to the States I gained a lot. Later on I discovered I’d not kept in touch with my school friends from 25 years before. I hadn’t even realized until I found this great website: Friendsreunited.co.uk. A close colleague from a previous job had sent me an eMail to ask how things were going, and in passing had mentioned the website. I decided to give it a go!
>>> PURPOSE <<<
The site allows you to search primary schools, secondary schools, ... ...even a section where you can lookup former colleagues at various work places, with whom you may have lost touch. Should you wish to get in contact there is a nominal registration fee of just GBP 5.00, which is renewable each year (excellent value!), which lets you send unlimited eMails or voice messages throughout the period of your membership to others listed.
>>> THE LAYOUT <<<
It’s very easy to understand and not too busy. In the top left corner ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Easiest way to track down old school friends Disadvantages: none
I believe that the web site friendsreunited.co.uk, is an absolute must visit for anyone who would like to track down old school or college friends, to get in touch, or simply to read about what they might be doing. I found a review of this site in a magazine and explored it yesterday. To register, you must give some basic details such as name, maiden name and email address. A code is emailed to you, to enable you to complete your registration. you ... ...regional and alphabetical search. When you have located your school, and most schools in Britain are on the site, you will then see a list of the pupils who have already posted their details. You can add a description of what you are doing now, such as where you are living, family, career etc. If you want to be included on the listing, you simply add your year of leaving. If you cannot remember there is a facility whereby you can input your age and ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Great site, free to join, easy to use. Disadvantages: None
friendsreunited.co.uk is an online website which allows you to be reunited with friends that you may have lost touch with. This can include people you went to school, college, university with or people that you have worked with but since lost touch with. The site is very simple and easy to use. It's well laid out, you simply visit the website and then you can create your account and add information about yourself by building a profile. This can include ... ...If somebody contacted you on friendsreunited.co.uk in the past you may have had to sign up to one of their subscriptions in order to be able to see the message that they sent to you and to swap e-mail addresses etc. I found this to be quite expensive and I did once join up at around £8.00 for a year just so I could read a couple of messages from an old teacher of mine (I did feel that it was worth it). However, the site has more of a facebook feel ...
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Ciao members have rated this review on average very helpful
Advantages: Getting in touch with old friends. Disadvantages: none
I found this site by chance, and it is strange as you get older. You tend to seek out your roots and want to know if anyone misses you from your childhood. Something to do with age I expect, and when I found this site, I thought it was a good idea to be able to look up people that went to school with you to see if they remember you. I actually caught up with a girl that I knew when I was 11 and boy have our styles of life changed since then. Still, ... ...started a section for people who have worked in certain companies, and you can look up the year and find people you used to work with which I also enjoy very much.
The modest fee of five pounds didn't seem a lot for finding people that I have long since lost and it is really nice to find a site which gives you such good value for money. Instead of pretend people or total strangers, you can trace people who made you who you are today in some small ...
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15.08.2003
(21.04.2004)
finding who Review ofFriendsreunited.co.ukby
billy1970
Advantages: not as good as i was expecting Disadvantages: free to join
Sitting at home with not a lot to do a couple of weeks ago i thought i would join friends reunited to find out what old school friends were upto now as it has been quite some years since i left school.
It was easy enough to register with this site and i only registered as a free member but have to say i am glad i did as this site realy didnt offer as much as i thought it would.
Firstly the problem i found was that even though my primary school ... ...isnt on there so i went onto my secondary school which used to be two schools when i was there a boys school and girls school on the same piece of land but merged quite a few years ago, the new school name is on there but doesnt go back any further than 1995 and the old schools are not on there at all.
This site realy didnt help me at all as a friend finder site.
It also has the option of finding friends who lived by you in your street or your ...
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