Reunited for less than a fiver (friendsreunited.co.uk)

Member Name: moongod

Product:	friendsreunited.co.uk
Date:	05/03/02 (62 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Free to register, It'll 'bring it all back', You'll soon have a friend to play My Little Ponies with again

Disadvantages: See what your smug school friends are up to, The site can be clunky, It'll 'bring it all back

Friends Reunited is a great service. In theory.

It is one of the few dot coms (in this case dot co dot uk) to actually come up with an innovative idea that exploits the new media of the internet.

Basically, you register and fill in details of which schools you attended when and a personal profile and picture (optional).

If you pay the annual £5 fee, you can contact other registrees via e-mail (you need a working e-mail address for the site to work).

Your money will also get you access to message boards, give you photo upload ability, allow you to enter reunion details.

So - 'The Management' get thumbs up for keeping the fee low, but they are relying upon you having lost touch with your best friend (they have to be worth a fiver to you at least!)

BUT (and here's the important bit) you can get in touch with people for FREE. Or at least they can get in touch with you. You can write your e-mail in your profile in words the form of 'name at domain dot com' (name@domain.com). Unfortunately, hotmail addresses seem to get deleted anyhow. What this DOES do is allows people who actually want to get in touch with you to do so. Admittedly, you can't mail other people who haven't done the same, but the way I see it is - if they don't want to be in touch with you, then that's their loss!

Now think about it - do you REALLY want to be in touch with the kid you shared veruccas with in primary school? In all seriousness, the main reason that you were friends were because you only had 25 dubious candidates to choose from...

Having said that tongue-firmly-in-cheek, a few friends have contacted me via the site and I'm perfectly happy to be in touch with them. Those that have since registered on the site and haven't got in touch - well, I know where their loyalties lie!! Not that I'm bitter.

It's a breeding ground for paranoia...

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