Falling victim to the hazards of competition from up-to-date blogging and social sites, Geocities will no longer exist later this year. Yahoo announced its decision in late April to shutter the ancient web hosting site, inspiring a range of responses. Keep reading for a look at Geocities' history, purpose, reactions to its closing, and the lessons we can learn.
A visit directly to Yahoo Geocities reveals that one can no longer obtain new accounts. Going to the site's Help Center turns up some terse questions and answers. Yahoo will actually be closing the site “later this year.” Existing accounts have not changed – yet. More details will be coming “this summer,” and they'll include such matters as how to save the data in your Geocities account. Users can keep their Geocities email addresses.
Yahoo noted that it doesn't offer another free web hosting service, but encouraged Geocities users to move “to our award-winning Yahoo! Web Hosting service.” It is in fact offering a substantial discount. It's a good thought, but frankly, the venerable search engine would be lucky to see even half of its Geocities users sign up. A search on Google for free web hosting turns up well over 40 million hits. Given this diversity, why should anyone pay to stay with Yahoo?
The answer to this question, Yahoo hopes, is that the company is a known quantity and has gained the trust of its users over the years. But the other web hosts aren't all newcomers either, and many of them boast excellent reputations as well. They include sites such as Blogger, WordPress, Typepad, Ning, and others. Jimdo is even openly soliciting Geocities users, requesting of visitors that “If any of your friends or family are still using GeoCities, tell them about our rescue mission.”
This great variety of free hosting, plus the rise of social sites, played a major factor in Geocities' final downfall. Why keep using Geocities when you can get the same or even more innovative services at other places online for the same price? And yet, for its time, Geocities was innovative. That time has passed; however, let's take a quick look back.
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