Memory Lane, the Seattle social networking site formerly known as Classmates.com, has cut an unknown number of jobs at its operations in Seattle.
A spokesman for United Online — the parent company of Memory Lane — declined to comment.
The buzz emanating from the social networking company indicates that staffers recently lost jobs across multiple functions in the company.
Memory Lane does face the daunting task of competing with larger social networking platforms such as Facebook and Twitter, both of which have mushroomed in users in the past few years.
Earlier this year, United Online repositioned its content and media unit with the launch of MemoryLane.com, described as the “largest archive of nostalgic content on the Internet.” At the time of the move, United Online changed the name of the unit from Classmates to Memory Lane.
Founded in 1995, Classmates.com was one of the first social networking sites. United Online acquired it for about $100 million in cash in 2004, and the site has hung around since then even as Facebook emerged as the dominant player in the category.
At the time of the acquisition, Classmates claimed 1.4 million paid subscribers, 10.3 million monthly active accounts and more than 38 million registered members.
In November, United Online CEO Mark Goldston said that the company continues to “test ways to engage our Classmates members with the Memory Lanec ontent, while seeking to develop ways to expand our revenue opportunities.”
