'Old Friends' website shutting down

A social networking website that gives Kiwis the chance to re-connect with former school mates is being shut down.

The Old Friends website, which is part of the Trade Me network, will close down early next year.

A spokesman for Trade Me said it was not a decision taken lightly, but that the company needed to ensure that it gets a good return on the time and people it invests into its businesses.

"...when there are other things we could be doing with those brains and dollars," he said.

"We've struggled to give Old Friends sufficient oxygen, given the bigger opportunities in the core areas of our business. We routinely review our portfolio and we think the time is right to pull the shutters down in early 2016."

The spokesman said the announcement was made now so that members of the site could save any information they would like to keep.

"When we close the site in early to mid-January all data will be deleted," he said.

In the past couple of months, Old Friends has had 600 to 1200 people login daily.

Yesterday those users got an email from the site to say it was closing down.

"We're getting in touch to give you an update about oldfriends.co.nz as we know you've recently been active on the site or have uploaded a photo in the past," the message read.

"We wanted to let you know that in a couple of months, we'll be closing oldfriends.co.nz down."

The email then went on to say: "To focus on building better products, sometimes we need to stop supporting older versions of our websites. We understand this might not be the best news for our members who use Old Friends regularly and this isn't a decision we've taken lightly."