General Chat

I haven't looked at FR for years!

I only got a couple of contacts, but no-one I knew. One woman was convinced she knew me... from the same town, but the wrong street, wrong number of siblings etc....... and she told me I must have things confused. :-S I think I know how many brothers I have and where I lived!

I joined FR quite early on ,in about 2000 they used to charge... £7 comes to mind but not sure if that was for a year or 6 months.

Just had a look and had 8 memories??

Found three towns listed umongst those then realised they were the nearest towns from the address's I listed as living at.....they shall be removed...infact I may delete the lot as I dont want people finding me now they know my married name

Awful Truly Awful :-P

Looks like the photo's to "Save to your box" relate to when they were added to the site not when they were taken.

Like others have said looked for school lists but no luck only existing contacts and couldn't open old messages.

Married name didn't seem apparent but just to avoid the aggravation have closed account..........fingers crossed that works.

And then the dreaded survey .........forget it :-P

Oooo.....I'm liking it, it seems I was 17 in 2009 :-D

I despaired of FR when it started suggesting schools for me - one in South Wales even though I grew up in Warwickshire!

Changes to website layouts haven't bothered me too much, it's the nature of the beast but the new FR makes FBs timeline look like a two year olds jigsaw.

Jimbob & Sylvia, looking for school friends from 1918 has to be the epitome of optimism :-D

This makes sense - not!

"To remove memories which you have kept, click on the item to enlarge it then click the green 'Kept' button."

Is 'kept' the new delete? :-S

I went on last night couldnt make head nor tail of it :-(

An excellent site absolutely ruined.

Why in heavens name did they allow Friends Reunited to be completely wrecked in the pursuit of modernization. Yes, gradual upgrades etc but this mish mash of nothing means it will almost certainly slip off serous genealogists preferred list.

Looks like Facebook for kids.

The whole concept has changed as has Facebook with timeline :-| :-( :-\

I don't want or need to check if I remember a well known event from - oooh - as long ago as 2010. Not what I joined for!

I am sure that I read when Genes was bought by Bright Solid that FR was bought by somebody else well known (not Cupid) but having the usual senior moment I can't remember. Shan't even bother to look, by the sound of it I'd either be totally confused or really aggravated so not worth it. Not been on there for ages, It was great in the beginning as I did find a few people. :-(

Ann


As far as I am aware, BrightSolid bought FR and its stable of sites ...... GR, dating, etc. I think by that time, they had shut down Jobs and any other sites that ITV had started up.


The problem is, I think, that they are trying to compete with FB, and to attract a younger group of members.


Jiminy ............... I wonder if our paths crossed in those earlier days :)))

I spent a lot of time on FR from 2004 to 2007, visiting many of the boards.

I spent less time on Connections, and stayed pretty close to the threads with people I "knew".



sylvia

It wont get many people straying on there,,,,,,,,what daft tech numpty designed that load of xxxx.......

same as Hayley,

it was £5 to join first off for a year then went free in 2004.

Kay,


I joined in 2004, and paid £5 for a year's membership

it then rose to £7 and then to £7.50

and was finally made free in 2007 when they kicked everyone off the Message Boards by closing them down, and forced them to go over to Connections, which was a free site.

I still have a series of emails that I sent to FR and then to Connections in mid-February 2007 complaining about the forced move, the slowness of the new site, and the fact that they had accepted payment for a year's subscription from people less than 24 hours before they closed the Message Boards

Connections had been set up in, I believe, early 2006 or late 2005 purely and simply as a Chat site ................ initially only on open Boards, but then Chat Rooms were later set up. Those Chat Rooms became an absolute minefield, or so I heard!


As first set up, Connections refused to allow anyone to use their real name .............. you had to join with an alias and use that on site.

That policy was changed in February 2007 as a lot of the FR members refused point-blank to use aliases, and FR had to either capitulate or lose several thousand "new" Connections members.


The fee for FR was removed at that same time .............. despite the fact that many people still had up to 364 days remaining in a paid membership. So far as I know, no-one received any kind of repayment. I certainly didn't.


The rationale for starting Connections, as told to me by FR staff, was that FR was not set up at the beginning to have Message Boards. They had responded to members' wishes by adding more boards to the one that was there from start-up. And, that section of FR had "grown like Topsy".

Thus, they felt that all the problems with the Boards (shades of on here!!) was because the site could not handle all the traffic.

So they set up Connections, with the promise that everything was properly done, and the site would work perfectly.

..................... and thenthey re-started Message Boards on FR in about 2008, due to members' wishes :-), closed Connections in 2009, and forced all Connections members to move back to FR.


There is still a board for Old Connections Members on the new FR


Of course, no-one new can now join any of the groups on FR, but members already in the group can continue posting.



sylvia

I can't get in there at all now cos silly me i linked it to my RB account forgetting that i use a different addy for FB.....So waiting for them to get back to me

Just reading in a computer magazine about FR. Apparently the makeover is an attempt to bring people back. And I was wrong theya re still owned by BS.

This piece calls it organised online nostalgia. They want apparently to move away from the original concept of school based roots. The new model encourages people to use their profile to collect/pin memories.

the article says that the problem with this line of thinking is that it assumes there is no other outlet for reminiscences. (Don't we do similar on here?)

It has had all charges removed. they feel older users may get more out of it because of the slower pace. It appears to be a sort of challenge to facebook.

In my opinion it has passed its sell by date, It was great when it started, gave us all an insight into social networking and was great fun. But the old adage quit while you are ahead comes to mind.

Ann

that's interesting.


There were still a number of my friends clinging to it .... they felt comfortable on there. Most of them are still trying to find their way around using it, some do not want to go on FB. And there were lots of people using it as a chat site, with loads of boards and threads ........ I never checked out everything that was available. I do know that at one time there were 6 General boards.


I still don't see how you are supposed to use the new version!

The message boards and threads are still there ............ but you can only use them if you were a member of the board before the change.

so no new members (or old ones looking around) can join in

I don't see how you make connections with people!


The first thing I saw on my home page in March was a class photo from my school, from my year but not my class. Lots of my friends on it, and it said that someone I knew had posted it as a memory.

So I tried to send a pm to "George". The message consisted of 2 short paragraphs. Immediately I sent it, I got a message that I had "exceeded your message limit for the day" :-S :-S :-S


I tried again 2 days later, but with 2 much shorter messages .......... got the same message :-S :-S :-S

I'd sent no other messages .................. so what does "exceeded your daily limit" mean!

............ are you supposed to send Twitter-type messages???????




sylvia

I had a quick look the other day and couldn't make head nor tail of it, I had lots of contacts and messages as I have a lot to do with the School reunions we have but not sure it will be as useful now. Surely there are plenty of other ways of finding ex colleagues etc but fr was good for old school pals

Oh well another thing not broken but 'fixed'

Lizx

yes what has happene to this site????????