Net pioneer GeoCities finally laid to rest
Summary
Yahoo shut down GeoCities the site that offered a free platform for users to create their own Web sites during the dot-com boom. Yahoo paid $4.5 billion for it.
Topics
The closure of GeoCities marks the end of an era, as the Internet community says goodbye to the pioneering Web site creation and hosting service portal.
Yahoo shut down the site Monday, 10 years after it bought the Web property for almost US$3.6 billion in stock--though the value was later revised to US$4.5 billion.
The Internet giant in April posted a notice on the GeoCities site highlighting plans to take it down and not archive its content. The company advised users to save their content offline or move their pages to Yahoo's paid Web hosting service.
The loss of GeoCities, which provided for many a first foray into the world of self-publishing on the World Wide Web, sparked several efforts to preserve the portal. Nonprofit organization Internet Archive, which seeks to back up and make archived copies of sites online, announced a project dedicated to provide a "deep and thorough" archive of GeoCities' sites.
For more, read "Net pioneer GeoCities finally laid to rest" from ZDNet Asia.
Talkback Most Recent of 12 Talkback(s)
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Ceridan27th Oct 2009 -
Before they were bought, they were ahead of their time.
Before they were bought, they were way ahead of their
time, trying to add a social aspect to web hosting.
After they were bought, they turned pretty crappy
quickly. This closing only proves that being bought by
Yahoo was ultimately one of the worst things that could
happen to GeoCities.
They will be missed, though.
CobraA127th Oct 2009 -
RE: Net pioneer GeoCities finally laid to rest
R.I.P. Geocities, it was like I was just making my first web page with you only yesterday.
Loverock Davidson27th Oct 2009 -
RE: Net pioneer GeoCities finally laid to rest
I will miss you Geocities, with your blinking fuscia H1 text and your under construction gif of a guy shoveling...
crazydanr@...27th Oct 2009 -
Who's going to host the click fraud sites now?
It was great having to hunt down bad guys using references to my employer to game search results and post up tons of pages for what appeared to be click fraud & malware distribution. I even got to flex my German language skills and even hacked some Geocities Japan pages in order to submit TOS complaints, since Geocities US wouldn't handle issues for Geocities Germany or Japan. Great times.
ejhonda27th Oct 2009 -
The end of an era *sigh*
As Cobra said, they will be missed.
Like Loverock, GeoCities was my first foray into web design, using Publisher.
When Yahoo bought them out, I was afraid this was going to be the end result.
JTF243@...27th Oct 2009 -
It helped me make my frist web page
I will miss you geocities
http://thetechnologycafe.com/a-tribute-to-yahoo-geocities-a-platform-that-helped-form-the-web/
samzbest@...27th Oct 2009 -
Free model starting to crumble?
Reasons why Geocities died:
- Obnoxious ads
- Spam/malware abuse
- Didn't keep up with Myspace and Facebook
- Not promoted enough (Yahoo just let it die)
But most importantly, I think it died because free services all over the web are being killed off in favor of paid services. As the sucker investors are finally catching on, free just doesn't ever make a payback, except in the rare case where you are able to find even dumber suckers to unload the company on (like Yahoo).
The free ride on the web is over.
terry flores27th Oct 2009 -
Interesting contradiction...
You mention both Myspace and Facebook as reasons why Geocities died and then go on to say "I think it died because free services all over the web are being killed off in favor of paid services." Notice how you managed to contradict yourself within the space of just a few words? And people think our public schools aren't putting out quality thinkers...
jasonp@...28th Oct 2009 -
Only partly right.
Geocities died because generally anything Yahoo touches dies. Companies like Yahoo aren't big risk takers like Google, they don't have a lot of capital to force trends like Microsoft, and they lack the imagination and marketing prowess of smaller companies like twitter...basically they are devoid of anything that would make them competitive in technology as anything other than a minor player and will probably go the way of Aol.
Socratesfoot29th Oct 2009 -
RE: Net pioneer GeoCities finally laid to rest
Don't be mean jasonp.
Not all of us were valedictorian of our class.
rushingturtle28th Oct 2009 -
Waste of money!
For what Yahoo paid for GeoCities it looks like it was a financial bust for yahoo.
rupaa6229th Oct 2009
Talkback - Tell Us What You Think
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