Back together again

In America and Britain the latest boom industry is nostalgia. Everywhere we look we seem to see businesses popping up that help us relive our past. The fashion and music industries are at the forefront with platform shoes and disco music making amazing comebacks. Remembering days gone by bring back memories of old school friends and we naturally wonder where they arc and what they are doing. It was thoughts such as these that Julie Pankhurst had when she was expecting her first child. Amber. Julie started wondering what her old school mates were up to and if any of them had started a family. She came up with an idea to create a website to help people contact old friends. Julie had a background in computer programming and felt creating the website would also keep her busy during her pregnancy. "What resulted was an unexpected multimillion pound online success story called Friends Reunited.

Julie's husband Steve, who was a computer consultant at the time, helped her develop the site. It was based on a simple database system which listed every school in the country. All you had to do was register first and then you could read the message boards and look up people from your old school. Friends Reunited went online in July 2000 and in the beginning had about 20 registrations a day. In January, Friends Reunited was featured on Steve Wright's radio show as Site of the Day. Within six months, half a million people had registered. Up until then the site had been free, but Steve and Julie began charging £5 to offset administration costs. Membership registration reached one million two months later, and today, Friends Reunited is one of the top 10 visited sites in Great Britain.

1. Friends Reunited is:

a) a computer programme

b) a high street store

c) an Internet website

1. Who had the original idea for Friends Reunited?

a) Steve b) Julie c) Amber

1. What is the purpose of Friends Reunited?

a) To help old friends get in touch.

b) То make money out of e-businesses.

c) То help investors make more money.

1. How many people used Friends Reunited per day when it started?

a) 2000 b) 200 c) 20

1. What helped Friends Reunited become so popular?

a) The fact that membership was free.

b) It was mentioned on a radio show.

c) Members could leave messages for friends.

1. How long did it take before Friends Reunited had one million members?

a) 2 months b) 6 months c) 14 months.