Friends Reunited considers classified advertising service

LONDON - Friends Reunited is considering classified advertising as the next area for extending its brand after successfully launching into dating, genealogy, jobs, and communities.

The company is looking at small ads as a potential area for growth and cites eBay as an example of how the classifieds model can work online.

The new service, which would not launch until 2006, is not certain to be developed but marketing director Tim Ward said classified ads would fit well with 's theme of providing "personal connections".

Ward, who joined Friends Reunited as part of a management buy-in in 2003, said: "No decision's been made but we obviously look at areas that are around personal connections. [Classifieds are] all about peer-to-peer and we've had some really positive feedback from customers."

Ward said attempts had been made to exploit online classifieds by some brands, including Fish4 and Loot, but said the popularity of the Friends Reunited brand and websites helped to justify the new launch.

He added: "In hindsight Genes Reunited and Friends Reunited Dating seem obvious but it's not always clear what will work and what won't."

He said the company spent no more than £30,000 on testing new services and could thus afford the risk.

The new launch for 2006 will be the fifth extension to the Friends Reunited brand, which most recently took in Connections, a service offering message boards and chatrooms to users. In March, it bought online jobs board Top Dog Jobs as a platform to launch its own jobs service.

The moves follow a management buy-in in 2003, as part of which Michael Murphy joined as CEO, Rob Mogford as chief financial officer, along with Ward as marketing director. Husband and wife co-founders, Steve and Julie Pankhurst, remain involved in the business.

The new investment and team has since helped develop the company, beginning with its first major acquisition, School Friends, the most visited reunion site in Australia, New Zealand and South Africa.

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