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Yahoo permanently shuts down Geocities
A few months ago it was revealed that Yahoo had sealed the fate of GeoCities, one of the pioneers of the emerging Internet years ago. Fifteen years of service came to a halt when Yahoo told everyone still using the service that it would be shutting down, encouraging them to move on to something better. Now, true to their word, Yahoo has finally pulled the plug on the free web-hosting service. Where the Geocities homepage once stood, Yahoo has substitute a placeholder that confirms today as the final day for service.
The shutdown date has been available for some time, giving anyone who was still relying on the service a chance to fetch any data they wanted and make plans to move on. There's no mention of just how many people still used the service, though I imagine it wasn't very many. Numbers aside, there's still a feeling of nostalgia I get when thinking about GeoCities. For many of us, it was one of the most common first experiences on the Internet, and was one of the first services that ever tried to cater to neophyte web users who wanted to make a name for themselves.
Yahoo is offering to migrate any existing users over to their hosted services. Their disposal of GeoCities is part of their greater plan to improve company profits, which has been an important concern after a series of failed mergers and service cuts.
The shutdown date has been available for some time, giving anyone who was still relying on the service a chance to fetch any data they wanted and make plans to move on. There's no mention of just how many people still used the service, though I imagine it wasn't very many. Numbers aside, there's still a feeling of nostalgia I get when thinking about GeoCities. For many of us, it was one of the most common first experiences on the Internet, and was one of the first services that ever tried to cater to neophyte web users who wanted to make a name for themselves.
Yahoo is offering to migrate any existing users over to their hosted services. Their disposal of GeoCities is part of their greater plan to improve company profits, which has been an important concern after a series of failed mergers and service cuts.
User Comments (7)
Post a comment| DarkCobra on October 26, 2009 1:17 PM | All things end. Yes, I too fondly recall my first experiences with simple web site building and using a Geocities site. It was very rudimentary but it got ya there. The notice of the closure indeed started quite some time ago but that day has finally arrived. Waving goodbye to an old and trusted friend. You served many of us well in those early Internet days . . . thanks! |
| tengeta on October 26, 2009 4:44 PM | Ah, the age of everyone having a useless (but definitely fun) webpage is coming to an end... if you don't count a myspace/facebook profile lol. |
| Julio on October 26, 2009 8:17 PM | There are still a thousand different blog making tools which
can actually ease the building process, but it's definitely
not the same as hosting your own files in a somewhat
tangible web server and adding a million different animated
gifs in a single html page (well maybe myspace users still
get that). For those of you who haven't been around for long enough, believe it or not, but a very early version of TechSpot was initiated in a FortuneCity free site with an URL that occupied the whole browser's address bar width. That's what you got for $0 back in the day. |
| JNygren on October 27, 2009 4:36 PM | WHAT?!! You mean my adoring fans can no longer gaze upon my
beautiful Geocities home page? Why didn't somebody warn
me??!!! Watamagonado, watamagonado!!! ;-) |
| fref on October 28, 2009 9:30 AM | The electronic version of my college yearbook was on Geocities, with the URL printed in the paper version so people could make updates if they wished. I guess that will no longer be an option... Too bad, it was nice to see where old friends were today. |
| limpangel on October 29, 2009 10:06 AM | The first website I created was with Geocities site builder
more than eight years ago on my university library
computers. I just loved the Badtz-Maru theme, used it on my 360 page also ... until that was closed too  |
| srdotnet on October 29, 2009 3:35 PM | Honestly, does anyone *really* care about this?
No better depiction of the "If a tree falls in the forest and no one heard it fall..." |
