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Friends Reunited - one of the UK's first social networks - has announced it will soon close.

Friends Reunited was launched in 2000, promising users the opportunity to find out what their old school friends were up to. Millions of people signed up, but now the site is closing down for good due to a lack of users.

Speaking to 5 live Daily's Adrian Chiles, the founder of Friends Reunited, Steve Pankhurst, said at one point the site was blamed for an increase in divorce rates, and that although the claims were "inevitable" they were also unfounded:

"When people started being reunited with old flames and getting married, there were lovely stories about marriage and births…but then the inevitable breakups and we got blamed for the rise in divorce, I don’t think it was Friends Reunited, it was the internet."

Steve described the height of Friends Reunited's success as "the best and worst time" of his life.

Asked what happens to all the data of those who signed up to the site, Steve said it would be properly archived and that users would have access to old photos for "quite a few months".

This clip was originally broadcast on 5 live Daily on Tuesday 19 January.

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