Friends Reunited won’t be available to message, post and keep in touch anymore. The once-popular social site, founded in 2000, was left in the dust by rivals such as MySpace and later, to a larger extent, Facebook.

Friends Reunited has a turbulent history. At one point a tech darling after quickly gaining three million subscribers in 2003, it was sold to ITV in 2005 for 125 million pounds, or about $208 million US. At its peak, 23 million users were on Friends Reunited.

But what the company didn’t intend was that employers would begin to use the service to check on potential and current employees, gauging what they said on social media as opposed to how they conducted themselves at work. It led to businesses using the site as a way to spy on employees, gathering information such as whether an employee was looking for another job, what they were saying about co-workers, or what interviewees and potential employees were saying online that could be potentially harmful.

At one stage, according to UK newspaper The Telegraph, Friends Reunited was blamed for a spike in the divorce rate on the grounds it encouraged classroom sweethearts to rekindle romances.

Instead of a positive, uplifting social experience where people felt secure to engage and share, the company found its platform being used as a way to spy on people for bad behavior. Naturally, users over time stopped posting and using the service. Membership dropped, especially when Facebook entered the picture a couple of years later. While Facebook continued to gain users, Friends Reunited found itself floundering.

The company was sold yet again in 2009 to DC Thompson for only 25 million pounds, and had only a fraction of its user base still active on the site. In 2012, the company decided to do a reboot and rebrand itself “Memory Box,” hoping to take on Facebook’s rapid growth. Memory Box did not succeed.

In 2014, DC Thompson offered the platform back to the original founder of Friends Reunited Steve Pankhurst, who thought he could restart the fledgling website. But in an announcement made on self-publishing platform Medium, Pankhurst announced its closure in January.

He wrote on Medium: "The first part of our plan was to put Friends Reunited back to make it more like the original site  --  that is, listing your schools and memories of your school days." However, this didn't really happen.

Pankhurst is now working on a new social media site called Liife, which allows you to upload photos and mark and share them with friends to identify significant “moments,” like trips, awards ceremonies or graduations. He said the new site would in no way replace Friends Reunited.

The related service Friends Reunited Dating still appears to be in operation and is not affected by the closing of the social service Friends Reunited. For more information on dating site please read our review of Friends Reunited Dating.

The 2015 Dating Sites Reviews Single's Choice Award poll was closed for voting at the end of 2015. In the 3 months it was open to voting the poll received 459 votes which is exactly 100 more than last year (which is a little weird). This poll is design to find out what our visitors feel is the best dating service. For this award we are looking at the top free dating site and/or app. The top 8 free dating services where picked by the Editor's to be contenders. In order for these dating services to be selected they needed to meet a number of criteria. This includes having a review on Dating Sites Reviews, having the core features of the service being free (including, profiles, searching, and messages), and being a service which is popular with our visitors.

The recipient of the 2015 Single's Choice Award for a Free Dating Site is Plenty Of Fish (POF). This is the seventh straight year in a row that POF.com has won this award. In 2015 POF received 134 votes which is 29 percent of the total votes cast. POF came in a little stronger this year as it received 4 percent more of the vote compared to last year.

Here are the final results of the poll:

1. Plenty Of Fish (POF)
2. OkCupid
3. Tinder
4. Meetup
5. DateHookUp.com
6. ChristianDatingforFree.com
7. Mingle 2
8. Craigslist

The top 3 dating services received 70 percent of all votes. POF received 4% more votes than OkCupid which came in second place at 24.8 percent. Rounding out the top 3 was Tinder which had 16 percent of the votes which is 75 votes in total.

Read our review of PlentyOfFish.com for more information about this online dating service or visit Plenty of Fish directly.

Online dating is big business after the holidays. In fact, user activity remains consistently high until Valentine’s Day, according to reports from online dating veteran websites like Match.

But it’s also a huge time for dating apps, especially Tinder – who had its biggest growth day in its history. On Sunday January 3rd, Tinder execs revealed that the app experienced the most downloads and the most growth of active users in a single day - ever. (Coincidentally, most online dating sites report that their biggest, busiest day of the year is the Sunday after New Year’s, when people are faced with the end of holiday revelry and the return to work.)

Needless to say, Tinder must have seen this spike coming and decided to take advantage with a new feature, which came in the form of a push notification. The notification alerted users when there was 2x to 3x higher rate of matches in their local area. It said:

Wow! Tinder is on fire in your area! Chances of a match are 3X higher right now (flame emoji)

The push notification was an interesting choice for Tinder execs to make, since the app prides itself specifically on not sending unwanted messages to its users, keeping the interaction as seamless as possible.

Tinder CEO Sean Rad looks at the feature as a win-win for users. “When there is a spike in engagement on the platform, we want to let users know so that they can take advantage of that moment,” Rad told news website TechCrunch.

The match rate is the number of swipes it takes to get to a match. When there is more engagement, the likelihood of matching with someone goes up. In a way, it’s a self-fulfilling prophecy. If you tell someone that the match rate is 2-3 times higher, then likely they will keep swiping (engaging) until they get a match.

“The most fascinating thing about this type of notification is that, by notifying users when those peak moments are happening, it increases the overall success rate for our users,” Rad told news website Tech Crunch. “It has a compounding effect and produces even more activity.”

The match alert is the latest in a series of moves Tinder has made to overcome its hook-up reputation and concentrate on more long-term matches. The company has also been sharing stories and photos of happy couples who met on Tinder, including a tweet from a couple on their wedding day, hoping to show proof that the app is helpful for finding long-term love.

Tinder faces competition from new services like Bumble, which lets the women call the shots first, and Coffee Meets Bagel, which provides one match a day to make sure people aren’t just mindlessly swiping. For more on this dating app, please read our review of Tinder.

A year after laying off 15% of its staff, Zoosk is ending things with another 40 employees. The break up will see the San Francisco-based dating platform part ways with 1/3 of the company.

Despite $61 million in funding, Zoosk has hit hard times. The old-school web dating app first hit it big building extensions for MySpace, Facebook, Hi5, and Bebo. Two years after launch, it reached 40 million registered users and 12 million active users. Bessemer Venture Partners, ATA, Crosslink, and more offered millions in funding. Other money came from selling subscriptions for premium features, like additional ways to contact dates.

Despite its early success, Zoosk has struggled in recent years. The company has found it difficult to adapt to the changing, increasingly mobile-focused times. Apps like Tinder, Hinge and Coffee Meets Bagel now dominate the market, edging out older dating services that haven't evolved to incorporate modern technology.

Zoosk has felt the sting severely. The company was forced to abandon its plans for an initial public offering in 2014, after filing for a $100 million IPO. At the same time, its founders stepped down and former CFO Kelly Steckelberg became CEO. The management shuffle was followed by a layoff of 15% of the company in January 2015.

Circumstances have failed to improve, leading Zoosk to its latest decision to let go another 40 team members. Steckelberg gave TechCrunch this statement:

“This reduction will increase operating efficiencies and streamline responsibilities as we prepare to bring several innovative product announcements to market in 2016. Our optimism for these developments that we expect to positively impact our growth does not diminish the reality of today’s news felt by our staff. We are committed to treating the impacted colleagues with respect and support during this transition.”

Zoosk is not the only one suffering in the current climate. As funding becomes harder to find, a number of startups are having to part ways with staff to stay in business. The online dating market is particularly difficult to compete in, as there are so many options for consumers.

Britanny Carter, an analyst for the research firm IBISWorld, spoke to the Wall Street Journal about the issue. “In terms of revenue, the online-dating industry has matured," she said, "but there are too many players and not a lot are generating sufficient revenue for these sites.”

Unless Zoosk has a major overhaul in store – something that can drag the dated service back into relevance – it may be doomed. It's best hope now could be a buyout from a bigger dating company. For more about this service you can read our review of Zoosk.

Your latest date loves movies, thinks soccer is the greatest sport in the world, and is dying to travel to Tanzania. But what do you really know about them?

Before meeting any online date in the real world, you need to feel comfortable. You want to know they're not going to be a con artist or a serial killer or secretly married. Founded in 2007, BeenVerified is a service that allows you to run background checks, which is ideal for checking out your dates.

BeenVerified is a one stop shop that searches a variety of records to bring you the most complete background checks possible. Using it is easy, fast and affordable, eliminating the need for multiple websites or in-person visits to courthouses and other government buildings. A BeenVerified search combs multiple sources and organizes the results into a clear, easy to understand report for your convenience.

Background check services have flourished in the age of digital dating, but BeenVerified offers one of the most comprehensive available. Records are searched across a wide variety of categories, including criminal history, relatives, addresses and property, names and aliases, phone numbers, and social networking accounts.

One of BeenVerified's most unique features is AlertMe, which monitors public record changes and sends alerts when updates are found. You're saved the tedious tasking of having to stay on top of the data yourself. Another special offering, available for an additional fee, is the Live Court Runner service, which dispatches a court runner to county court houses to obtain real-time criminal records.

Use of the site isn't free, but a variety of subscription options are available to suit different needs and budgets. Subscriptions can be purchased for one month, three months or six months. Each comes with unlimited: contact information, phone lookups, property address lookups, email lookups, criminal court lookups, and bankruptcy lookups. More advanced features can be purchased separately.

Once your report has been compiled, it can be accessed from your BeenVerified dashboard. Simply log into the site, select the report you'd like to view, and navigate using the table of contents on the lefthand side. You can view, download, or print your purchased reports at any time.

BeenVerified also offers free mobile apps for an on-the-go experience. An iOS app is available for iPhones and iPads, as well as an Android app and an app for Apple Watch. You could be mid-dinner with a date and run a check to help put your mind at ease. Staring at your smartphone isn't usually encouraged during dinner, but if it saves you from a dating disaster, you get a pass.

By merging public records into a single report, BeenVerified alleviates the need to visit county clerks, search multiple websites, and pay hundreds of dollars to find the information you need to make the dating process carefree and fun. For more information on this service please read our BeenVerified review.

It's the busiest time of year for online dating. The stretch between Christmas and Valentine's Day is peak season for tech savvy singles. Some are scoring big while others are striking out.

With any luck, you're in the first category. Your date card is so full it's practically become a full-time job. Things are looking up for 2016.

Or maybe not. Maybe you're in the second category, sending message after message into the ether and getting nothing back. That's no way to begin a new year. Fortunately, the folks at Zoosk have compiled some simple suggestions for changing your luck in their "7-Step Guide to Landing a Date."

Here are the highlights:

1. Suggest a date activity if you're really into the person. A recent survey of 3000 Zoosk members revealed that suggesting a movie date increases the response rate to your messages by 91 percent. Other compelling keywords include the beach (59 percent) and a park (39 percent).
2. Send messages in the morning if you're a man and in the evening if you're a woman. Men increase their chance of a response by 10 percent if they send messages between 9 am and 10 am. Women, on the other hand, are nocturnal creatures. Their messages are best sent between 10 pm and 11 pm.
3. Reply within 24 hours. The internet isn't exactly known for its patience. Of those surveyed by Zoosk, 94 percent said they expect a response within 24 hours. Playing too hard to get can easily backfire when more options are only a swipe away.
4. Highlight your individuality. What makes you unique? Your special characteristics are what separate you from the vast sea of singles online. Embrace your glasses, flaunt your tattoos. Just stay away from overtly sexual messages, which Zooskers give a digital thumbs down.
5. Watch the character count. Men aren't picky when it comes to message length, but women expect more effort. Forty percent of the female users Zoosk surveyed said they prefer messages that are longer than the 140 characters of a tweet.
6. Expect to send multiple messages. Establishing rapport online takes more than a single sitting. Around half of singles polled said they exchange five messages before meeting a new suitor in person.

What's step 7, you ask? Start adding dates to your calendar.

Follow Zook's seven rules and you'll set yourself for a 2016 that's brimming with romantic possibilities.