As reported, ITV have sold the Friends Reunited site which it bought back in 2005 for a reported £120 million, which since then they have paid another £55 million into it since due to its financial performance.

The huge sale of the onetime leading, and one of the first prolific Social Network's will most likely be a linked to offset some of the cost incurred due to the losses which ITV has reported in due to falling advertising revenues and the broadcasters pension deficit. The cost cutting which aims to make savings of £285million by 2011 will be a huge part of this sale, even though ITV has claimed that the site was always profitable.

Understanding the reason to buy this Social Media platform in the past was to gain ITV online presence although how they used this to gain the online presence needed is something that is not obvious to the regular person. The move from ITV to a more media rich, video content based service which it runs on its own ITV site will now have gained the broadcaster more than enough internet presence in itself so it seems to be a smart move on the part of ITV to sell Friends Reunited to someone who may be able to use it to its full potential.

The Dundee-based publisher of comics such as the famous 'Beano' comic, DC Thompson have paid the very reduced price of £25million for the Social Network, although the question is, what exactly will they do with it? It still remains to be reported on the ideas and next steps for the prolific Social Network but I'm sure the 18 million registered users will be excited about the prospects to come for the established Social Media platform.

Video Link: ITV's Chief operating officer talking about the sale of Friends Reunited (Source BBC News)  http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/business/8187175.stm