classmates.com is a

social networking service A social networking service or SNS (sometimes called a social networking site) is an online platform which people use to build social networks or social relationships with other people who share similar personal or career content, interests, ac ...

. It was founded on November 17, 1995 by Randy Conrads as Classmates Online, Inc. It originally sought to help users find class members and colleagues from

kindergarten Kindergarten is a preschool educational approach based on playing, singing, practical activities such as drawing, and social interaction as part of the transition from home to school. Such institutions were originally made in the late 18th cen ...

primary school A primary school (in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Australia, Trinidad and Tobago, Jamaica, and South Africa), junior school (in Australia), elementary school or grade school (in North America and the Philippines) is a school for primary e ...

high school A secondary school describes an institution that provides secondary education and also usually includes the building where this takes place. Some secondary schools provide both '' lower secondary education'' (ages 11 to 14) and ''upper seconda ...

college A college (Latin: ''collegium'') is an educational institution or a constituent part of one. A college may be a degree-awarding tertiary educational institution, a part of a collegiate or federal university, an institution offerin ...

, workplaces, and the U.S. military. In 2010, CEO Mark Goldston described the transition of the website "to increasingly focus on nostalgic content" such as "high school yearbooks, movie trailers, music tracks, and photographic images". To this end, and to appeal more to older users, the website name was changed to Memory Lane, which included a website redesign. This change was short-lived, however. Classmates dropped the Memory Lane brand in 2011.

Corporate information

United Online United Online, Inc. was an independent public company formed by the 2001 merger of NetZero and Juno Online Services. It is currently a subsidiary of investment bank B. Riley Financial. The company's range of products and services has evolved s ...

, Inc. (Nasdaq: UNTD) acquired Classmates Online in 2004No. 2 Internet service provider buying Classmates Online
, ''

Seattle Times ''The Seattle Times'' is a daily newspaper serving Seattle, Washington, United States. It was founded in 1891 and has been owned by the Blethen family since 1896. ''The Seattle Times'' has the largest circulation of any newspaper in Washington st ...

'', October 26, 2004. and owned and operated the company as part of its Classmates Media Corporation

subsidiary A subsidiary, subsidiary company or daughter company is a company owned or controlled by another company, which is called the parent company or holding company. Two or more subsidiaries that either belong to the same parent company or having a ...

until 2015. Classmates Media operated online social networking and loyalty marketing services under the Classmates.com and MyPoints brands, respectively. Classmates Media also operated the following international sites designed to enable users to connect with old friends: * StayFriends.de (Germany) * StayFriends.se (Sweden) * StayFriends.at (Austria) * Trombi.com (France) In May 2016, the StayFriends sites were sold to Ströer. In August 2015, Classmates was acquired from United Online by PeopleConnect Holdings, Inc., a portfolio company of

H.I.G. Capital H.I.G. Capital is a Miami, Florida–based private equity and alternative assets investment firm with $53 billion of equity capital under management. The firm operates a family of private equity, growth equity, credit/ special situation, prima ...

, for $30 million. Classmates is now operated as a division of PeopleConnect, which also owns

Intelius Intelius, Inc. is a public records business headquartered in Seattle, Washington, United States. It provides information services, including people and property search, background checks and reverse phone lookup. Users also have the ability to ...

. Classmates Media Corporation's

business model A business model describes how an organization creates, delivers, and captures value,''Business Model Generation'', Alexander Osterwalder, Yves Pigneur, Alan Smith, and 470 practitioners from 45 countries, self-published, 2010 in economic, soci ...

is based on

user-generated content User-generated content (UGC), alternatively known as user-created content (UCC), is any form of content, such as images, videos, text, testimonials, and audio, that has been posted by users on online platforms such as social media, discussion f ...

and

revenue In accounting, revenue is the total amount of income generated by the sale of goods and services related to the primary operations of the business. Commercial revenue may also be referred to as sales or as turnover. Some companies receive rev ...

from paid

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and

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sales.

Users and ranking among other social networking sites

The only time Classmates appeared on Hitwise's top 10 list of social networking websites was June 2009, when it appeared tenth with 0.45% market share. In early 2008,

Nielsen Online Nielsen Holdings plc is an American information, data and market measurement firm. Nielsen operates in over 100 countries and employs approximately 44,000 people worldwide. The company was listed on the New York Stock Exchange (NYSE) and use ...

had ranked Classmates as number three in unique monthly visitors (U.S. home, work) among social networking sites. As of June 30, 2008, Classmates Media had more than 50 million members, but only 3.8 million paying subscribers. In 2006, television program '' The View'' mentioned Classmates.com as having more than 40 million members in the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country Continental United States, primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., ...

and

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. According to the Online Publishers Association Paid Content U.S. Market Spending Report, Classmates.com was Number 4 among the Top 25 Web Destinations Ranked by Consumer Content Revenue in both 2002 and 2003 (the last years that individual site rankings were broken out). As more users have moved to

Facebook Facebook is an online social media and social networking service owned by American company Meta Platforms. Founded in 2004 by Mark Zuckerberg with fellow Harvard College students and roommates Eduardo Saverin, Andrew McCollum, Dust ...

, the site has fallen in popularity. Classmates.com was one of the first social networks. However, its habit of continuously charging customers with small fees prevented it from reaching the scale and popularity of later social sites. As of 2015 (the year the company turned 20), Classmates had over 70 million current members.

Privacy

Classmates.com members use real names, not screen names (although some members use a fake name). Member privacy is protected through a double-blind email system, so email addresses and contact information are never revealed unless self-disclosed by members one-on-one.

Registering and networking

It is free to register as a basic member of Classmates.com. Basic members can: * Create profiles and search the entire

for friends * Get emails about people they have never met visiting their profile, Classmates+ (formerly Gold) members, who pay a fee, may also: * read and reply to every message in their Classmates Inbox * see the names of others who have visited their profile * see who remembers them and how they’re described as being remembered * receive a discount on yearbook reprints

Digital yearbook collection

The Classmates website has an online archive of over 300,000 yearbooks, accessible with a free Classmates membership. The oldest yearbook currently in the collection is the 1885 yearbook from Central High School (Manchester, NH). Classmates’ yearbook collection includes the yearbooks of many celebrities, which are periodically discovered and featured on the company’s blog.

Reunions

As of 2015, Classmates members used the website to plan over 350,000 class reunions. Over 5 million members were invited to a reunion that year.

Controversial business practices and legal issues

Membership renewal and cancellation

It is standard practice for Classmates.com to auto-renew memberships at the end of each billing period. In December 2006, when ''

PCWorld ''PC World'' (stylized as PCWorld) is a global computer magazine published monthly by IDG. Since 2013, it has been an online only publication. It offers advice on various aspects of PCs and related items, the Internet, and other personal tech ...

'' field tested several companies to determine how easy or difficult it was to cancel their service, Classmates.com was one of the companies that received their worst rating.

Fraudulent e-mails and settlement

Classmates.com had sent a significant number of emails that told recipients their old friends from school wished to reconnect (and the recipients would need to buy Classmates.com memberships to receive their old friends' contact information). A class action lawsuit was brought against Classmates.com in 2008. The lead plaintiffs in the case were David Catapano and Anthony Michaels. Classmates.com agreed to pay $2.5 million to its users to settle the lawsuit.

Piggybacking and post-transaction marketing

Classmates.com was accused of piggybacking and

post-transaction marketing Post-transaction marketing is a deceptive marketing practice used by many companies, which have then been subject to investigation, charges from state attorneys general, and class action lawsuits. According to a United States Senate staff report, ...

. Parent company United Online earned $70 million from marketing practices under investigation in 2009 by the

Senate Commerce Committee The United States Senate Committee on Commerce, Science, and Transportation is a standing committee of the United States Senate. Besides having broad jurisdiction over all matters concerning interstate commerce, science and technology policy, a ...

involving piggybacking a second credit card transaction with membership to Classmates.com involving a

loyalty program A loyalty program is a marketing strategy designed to encourage customers to continue to shop at or use the services of a business associated with the program. Today, such programs cover most types of commerce, each having varying features and ...

Settlement on hidden online shopping fees

On August 18, 2010, New York Attorney General

Andrew Cuomo Andrew Mark Cuomo ( ; ; born December 6, 1957) is an American lawyer and politician who served as the 56th governor of New York from 2011 to 2021. A member of the Democratic Party, he was elected to the same position that his father, Mario Cuo ...

announced a settlement with six companies, including Classmates, as part of a probe into the discount club industry. Classmates was among the retailers that agreed to pay $2.1 million toward refunds and consumer education. Under the alleged practice investigated, consumers who completed online purchases were presented with discounts or cash-back offers, and accepting these offers triggered small, easy-to-overlook recurring charges billed to unfamiliar company names. Classmates' share of the settlement amounts to $960,000 and a commitment to end these practices.

References

External links

* {{DEFAULTSORT:Classmates.Com American social networking websites Internet properties established in 1995 Person databases Person databases 2004 mergers and acquisitions 2015 mergers and acquisitions