So who's behind SAReunited?
A group of South Africans. The three founders are South African, and most of the team live in or are from sunny SA (or are at least converted biltong-eaters). The founders are:
Amanda Stergianos (Marketing and Design) - the one in London who said "Eish, I'm missing my South African friends so much - I need a homegrown website that helps me track them down",
Themi Stergianos (MBA dude and Business Developer) - her brother in Cape Town who said "Ja no, that's a fantastic idea - I'll help you develop the business," and
Nick Tsinonis (Technical Design and Project Management) - the cousin who said "Ag lekker! I can help you build the website!"
OK, maybe they didn't use those exact words. Nick's a little more linguistic. But those were their sentiments, and that's what they did. They built a website, from scratch, that was exclusively for South Africans. They named it SAReunited and launched it on 07 July 2002.
Within 5 years hundreds of thousands of South Africans were using the site to find each other. On some days the website received up to 800 new registrations, and it grew to approximately 10 million impressions throughout the site per month. SAReunited had become a global South African phenomenon. And Amanda had found all her old friends.
And so it was time to evolve and relaunch...
The founders realised that not only did they want to track down old friends, they wanted to make new ones too! And so, it seemed, did many of their members. Whether they're in Pofadder or Perth, East London or Central London, South Africans want to find like-minded people around them; and they want to write blogs, upload photos, make business contacts, start book clubs, network, advertise their small businesses locally and just have more fun on a daily basis.
It was time for SAReunited to join the web 2.0 revolution and give members more features, more freedom...and more for free. And that's what they did!
With over 700,000 members, SAReunited revamped its look, created new features, made getting in touch free and relaunched their brand new site on 24 April 2008. It has Facebook-type features, but with more for South Africans and no annoying vampire bites or growing your own duck. Just serious South African networking!
yesnomayB
The very same team also launched the only dating site that learns your taste - now with over 150 000 members! Last year Nick, Amanda and Themi launched www.yesnomayB.com - a really fun and addictive way to meet cool singles around the world. Members are asked: "Would you date this person?". They respond with: YES, NO or MAYB to a series of really large, glossy pictures - and they end up with a slick Little Black Book, packed with potential hotties. This is the first online dating site in the world that uses collaborative filtering (that means it recommends dates according to your past choices!). yesnomayB.com is an international dating site with niche markets for English speaking countries; and has straight, gay and lesbian sub websites.
yesnomayB.com now powers Webmails, Heat, FHM and EishSA's dating service in South Africa, and is looking for more partners to grow the business. Please contact us if you would like a dating site powered by yesnomayB.com and monetize your traffic with an affiliate agreement!
Or visit the yesnomayB website directly in your country:
- www.yesnomayB.co.za - online dating in South Africa |
- www.yesnomayB.co.uk - online dating in the United Kingdom
- www.yesnomayB.ca - online dating in Canada
- www.yesnomayB.com - online dating in USA and world
- www.yesnomayB.com.au - online dating in Australia
- www.yesnomayB.co.nz - online dating in New Zealand
- www.yesnomayB.sg - online dating in Singapore
- www.yesnomayB.hk - online dating in Hong Kong
Contact Details
To contact Nick, Themi or Amanda, please click here.
