Found you online!

For those of us who’ve been online since way back when, we’ve seen an exponential increase in the number of social networking sites (SNS), such as Friendster and MySpace. In other languages, as well, this type of community-based online service has proliferated all over the Web. And all of them pretty much offer the same basic services: building a group of friends, online dating, even blogging. FYO1 is different. In fact, it’s the first of its kind that I’ve seen so far.

It stands for FoundYouOnline, an SNS that makes it easy for members to locate old friends from school, hook up with other singles (assuming you’re single as well!), as well as touch base with — and this is what makes FYO1 unique — old military buddies.

(No, I don’t think FoundYouOnline.com requires you to be an ex-serviceman to join. But, isn’t it noteworthy to have a service that’s this specific, this targeted?)

When searching for single men or women, the site has a simple enough form for specifying the search parameters: searchee’s age range, location, and whether or not the results should include profiles without photos.

Searching for someone you’ve served with in the military, however, is a lot more granular. Which goes to show that this service has a special affinity towards people in uniform. When doing this search, you drill down from the major services (e.g., Air Force), down to the group (e.g., 314th Airlift Wing), to the class (e.g., the Squadron).

For looking up classmates in grade school, high school, college or beyond, the search is organized by hierarchy as well: from state to city to school. If you don’t find anyone listed in your school (or in your military class, for that matter), the interface lets you add your entry in a snap.

Thing is, it only works for you if you’ve ever studied in the United States or served in the American military. Let’s hope that FYO1 will broaden its coverage in the near future, it being on the Internet after all.

This is a sponsored post.