The Web's Department of Missing Persons
What's it worth to find old friends via the Web?Brad Grimes
Last fall, I attended my tenth-anniversary college reunion at Northwestern University in Illinois. Flash-flood warnings forced many attendees--including me--to stay inside for some events. I saw the football team splash to victory, but avoided the soggy tailgate parties.
I missed catching up with old friends. So at home, I logged on to Classmates in hopes of tracking them down. Classmates can put you in touch with people from your college, your high school, or even your grade school. The site also helps military personnel stay in touch. You can swap notes, chat, and post photos. And it will be adding a service--which should be available in March--that will allow former work colleagues to find each other. This could serve as a nifty networking tool.
Finding Classmates...
But like so many other Web sites, Classmates is only as good as its content--and in this case, that content depends on people signing up and adding their names to its directories. I found only 13 people listed from my Northwestern graduating class, none of whom I knew. Exploring listings for my high school class in Connecticut instead, I found 58 people from a class of around 300.
Classmates lets you post a biography and a photo, but no one from my high school class chose to do so. Regardless, I was intrigued enough to want to send greetings to my old tennis partner and to the first girl I kissed, among others. But to send a note to them, I'd have to shell out $30 a year. That seems a hefty fee for finding e-mail addresses that may or may not be current, for old acquaintances who may or may not want to hear from you. Still, Classmates says that 1.7 million of its 25 million members do pay the fee, so I decided to give it a try. I sent out several e-mail notes, most of which garnered a nice response. (A few bounced back because the e-mail address was bad or simply went unanswered.) My tennis buddy, I learned, is now an architect in Kentucky, and my First Kiss works for a tech company in New Hampshire. Was it worth 30 bucks? I did get e-mail addresses, though not for the college friends I'd sought, and I revived some connections. But we can swap greetings from our own e-mail clients, chat via an instant messaging program, or share photos on a cool site like Snapfish--without paying a cent.
...And Contacts, Too
I could check in with Classmates to see if other former classmates sign up. But will I? One of my newfound old friends said that she rarely learns anything new there. In fact, I get the feeling I'm the only one from my class who actually ventured to contact anyone.
But I do think Classmates might be good for one other purpose. In these uncertain times, a directory of old work colleagues (provided they sign up) sounds like it could be a useful resource. I'm pleased with the contacts I renewed via Classmates, but I'm not sure I needed the help. It turns out that I could have found both my tennis mate and my First Kiss at Switchboard.com, a mundane white pages site--for free.
Contact PC World Contributing Editor Brad Grimes at websavvy@pcworld.com.
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