Before Twitter, before Facebook, before MySpace – heck, even before Friendster, there was a service known as GeoCities. For those who grew up on the Net in the 90s, it was about as close as you get to what we know today as social networks. It was essentially an organization of like-minded user-created homepages in different topical communities like sports, entertainment, and tech.
Back in the proverbial day, GeoCities was the place where many a modern-day internet nerd cut his or her teeth. After a spectacular dot com purchase of $3.65 billion and an equally spectacular dot com bust, its closure marks the end of one of the earliest ages of the social web.
I remember starting my first page with Geocities. Although, with the Yahoo’s focus elsewhere, it makes sense to shut down what is essentially an internet relic. Still, to those who look back with nostalgia, October 26 could well be a wistful day.
If you don’t know what Geocities is, or rather was, then here’s a wikipedia link for you!
But if you are familiar with it, it’s official end is certainly a bit nostalgic. When every thought that just by making a web page, one would get rich overnight. Was something like the completely misunderstood business of AMWAY :-)
Without a sound business model, people were thinking that just by making some loose web pages sticking together, they could make millions.
Of course there were always those enthusiasts who were doing it for the fun (like me).
GeoCities began in mid-1995 as BHI, which stood for "Beverly Hills Internet," a small Web hosting and development company in Southern California.
The company also created its own Web directory, organized thematically in six "neighborhoods." The neighborhood included "Colosseum," "Hollywood," "RodeoDrive," "SunsetStrip," "WallStreet," and "WestHollywood." In mid-1995, the company decided to offer users (thereafter known as "Homesteaders") the ability to develop free home pages within those neighborhoods. Chat, bulletin boards, and other elements of "community" were added soon after, helping foster rapid growth. On July 5, 1995 Geocities added additional cities, including "CapitolHill," "Paris," "SiliconValley," and "Tokyo." By December 1995, the company, which now had a total of 14 neighborhoods, was signing up thousands of Homesteaders a day and getting over six million monthly page views. The company decided to focus on building membership and community, and on December 15, 1995, BHI became known as GeoCities after having also been called Geopages.
Whatever said, the closure of Geocities marks the end of an era!
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