Classmates.com is often considered the first SNS, which was a place for people to find and connect with former classmates from kindergarten, primary school, high school, and college (Oblinger & Hawkins, 2006).  They also allow members of the United States military to connect with each other.

As of February 2006, they had 40 million members. Originally, members could not create user profiles or list friends, which is why Classmates.com is not considered a social network site at their launch in 1995 (Boyd & Ellison, 2007).

They are included here because they helped spark the idea of an online social network, and eventually became one.

After signing up, members who don’t pay a subscription fee can find friends and  create a profile.  However, by paying a fee you can find out where other members live, find out who is visiting your profile, and can send email to other classmates.  As of May 2008, there are three membership options: $2.46 per month for 2 years; $3.25 per month for 1 year; or $5.00 per month for 3 months.

The first step of becoming a member – as with every other SNS – is to create a profile and add a picture.  Then you can search for friends by importing your address book directly from your MSN Hotmail, Gmail, Yahoo, or AOL email accounts.

After the profile is complete, members can begin browsing student profiles based on the years they attended.  Memebers can also look for friends, teachers, and any parents of students who are on classmates.com as well.

Members create message boards to chat about various subjects, or to try and find lost friends.  There are photo albums for members to post their pictures on.  And there is a feature for people to view a map of where every member is living that graduated when you did.

This map allows members to drill down to the city level to find out where your classmates are located.  And if you pay the basic subscription cost of $2.46 a month, you can retrieve address and profile information for any member.

The global navigation bar is pretty simple: a a message center to send mail within Classmates, an Events & Reunions section to find out about any activities happening for graduates of that school, a way to invite friends, and various account tabs.

The profile pages are divided into various sections: a photo area; Question and Answer areas; Bulletin Board; and a way to view the member’s community memberships.  For example, Maria (below) is part of three communities (a high school community, undergraduate college community; and a graduate community).