I have to admit, I forgot about GeoCities until I saw the news a few days ago. Before Blogger/Blogspot, WordPress, MySpace, Facebook, and Twitter, GeoCities provided a valuable public service – free web presence in the early days. Websites for the masses, which weren’t always the most attractive, even by 1990′s standards. They were fairly easy to create, no HTML required. One could even upload their own HTML files to their account. Whatever the quality of the personal websites (and the information contained within), GeoCities was democratic as it gave many a means for self-expression. They’ve managed to continue after Yahoo acquired them a decade ago, but now they have gone the way of the dinosaur. Yahoo has decided to close down the once ubiquitous web hosting service.
My very first website was on GeoCities. I used the templates at first, but then graduated to uploading my own files created on Pagemill and early Dreamweaver. Once I created a fairly attractive website, the disadvantages were the limited memory space (2 MB in the late 90′s), ads, and the complicated URL. Plus, having a GeoCities address was cheesy, so I eventually moved on. I would later relive some of my mixed feelings about GeoCities when I started my blog on Blogger/Blogspot and created a MySpace profile.
I’m sure I’m not the only user who sought to flee GeoCities the first chance they got. However, I feel some sadness for their closure as it signals the end of an era. No, the era’s long past and now they’re going. Rest in peace, GeoCities.
