Friends Reunited RIP and conducting interviews

Today it was announced that the Friends Reunited website is going to close. Now for all of you youngsters out there this is what we had as a social network before Facebook and Twitter and when Myspace was king. Having a profile was free but you had to pay to actually send anyone a message. Why am I bothering to even talk about this you might ask? Well, if it hadn't been for Friends Reunited Toni would never have sent me a wink and the world could be very different now. This is one of the many faces that the site had over the years:

Who knows, if they had dropped their paid subscription model much sooner it might have lasted but there was no way it could compete with the free models offered by Myspace, Facebook, Bebo (YUK) and Twitter. The subscription model did get dropped in 2008 but by then it was too late as they had lost too much ground. In fact after our initial Friends Reunited wink and my follow up message (as I had a subscription) Toni and I predominantly conversed on MSN Messenger (remember that one?) and Myspace.

Here's the relevant social media timeline:

Friends Reunited 2000
Myspace 2003
Facebook 2004 (US Only) & 2005 (UK & worldwide)
Bebo 2005
Twitter 2006

Sad to see that Friends Reunited is going to close but then it was also sad to see Myspace try and be like Facebook and in the process completely destroy itself to the point of it being irrelevant although it does exist as a pale imitation of it's former self.

Today was supposed to be a busy one loaded up with three interviews to fill a Delphi. I got in to work to find that two couldn't make it so it was much easier. The one today went well with the candidate being asked back for further sessions tomorrow. Tomorrow is now going to be very busy with four interviews followed by two on Wednesday. Still, it's much better than sitting around idle I guess!