When most Kiwi web surfers think of Trade Me they think of the highly popular online auction site. However, the Trade Me also runs online dating agency Find Someone), Flathunt for those in the market for a new flat or flatmate and online escrow service Safe Trader.
The latest site in the Trade Me stable of runners is Old Friends, a place for Kiwis to locate old school friends and workmates.
Old Friends is free to use and offers an e-mail notification service that updates members when other people join their old schools and workplaces.
It’s a concept that has had great success overseas, with a similar site in the United Kingdom that focuses on school, growing to 4 million registered users within a few months and drawing more than half of the UK’s total web traffic. Friends Reunited (www.friendsreunited.co.uk) is the 11th most popular UK site overall.
There are a wide range of sites offering a similar service here in New Zealand, including Find a Kiwi, Friends Reunited NZ, School Reunions, Reunion, Lost School Friends NZ and Kiwis Reunited.
UNAPPETISING SPAM
Spam continues to be one of the biggest drawbacks of being online. With the Outlook XP you can download only the headers of your e-mail, making it far easier to spot spam before downloading the whole message. For those who don’t have XP, try MailWasher, which lets you download only the headers and put stubborn spammers on your blacklist so that any message sent from them again will be bounced back, making them think your address no longer exists.
You can also use it for hassle-free filtering and best of all it’s free.
Although if you do use it and consider it to be good, consider making a voluntary donation.