This post was published 3 months 16 days ago which may make its actuality or expire date not be valid anymore. This site is not responsible for any misunderstanding.

After 15 years Yahoo has flipped the switch on Geocities. My first web host today no longer serves up any webpages and greets users with this rather grim message.

Time is up for Yahoo Inc.’s scheduled closing of perhaps the most significant virtual museum in recent history. Years ago a central meeting place for a massive chunk of American Web surfers, GeoCities will lock its doors and take millions of pages offline.

GeoCities allowed anyone to build a custom Web page for free and reserved a small amount of virtual storage to keep pictures and documents. It was perhaps the first mainstream example of an open, participatory and personal Internet. [...]

The collapse of GeoCities, though, is perhaps the most epic failure in Yahoo’s portfolio. After going public in 1998 during a period when GeoCities rose to unprecedented prominence as a top-five player on the Web, the following years practically embodied the grander burst of the Internet bubble.

Yahoo paid about $3 billion in 1999 for a company that seemed poised to continue its domination of the user-driven Net. Failing to turn any significant profit from all of those pop-ups and banner ads (in fact, there’s questions about whether GeoCities was ever cash-flow positive), the purchase — or perhaps Yahoo’s inaction once GeoCities was acquired — turned out to be one of the company’s most costly mistakes. [via

Kinda funny, after all the warnings two of my favorite sites are offline because of the Geocities shutdown. Shout out in the comments you memories of Geocities.

Also, in other news seems like Yahoo hit a small stumbling block with its Mail system today. Although nothing is announced officially on Yahoos end, Twitter users are all in a tizzy about being unable to access their mail.