School site soars to top of the class

Friendsreunited pulls in the pounds as UK web visitors rocket...

More than 14 million people in the UK have logged on to the internet from home, and new applications like tracing long-lost school-friends are pulling in the punters. Men still make up the majority of internet users in the UK, but women, who represent 41 per cent of internet users, are catching up, according to the latest figures from internet monitoring company NetValue. Friendsreunited.co.uk, the site that allows users to track down old school friends, grew to 542,000 unique users in July, rocketing from just 97,000 in May. The site was boosted by massive media coverage. A quarter of Friendsreunited visitors went on to secure connections with old acquaintances, says NetValue. Many of them have paid the £5 fee to send messages to old schoolmates.