5 ms·

Yahoo’s $3.65 Billion Mistake: Yahoo Closes GeoCities

32 points by insomniamedia 17y ago

armadilko 17y ago
Yep they have to consolidate their business there is a lot of waste there.
andr 17y ago
"To quickly download your published files, visit your GeoCities web site, right-click on each page, and choose Save Page As... from the menu that appears." Ouch! They could at least provide an export tool.
- dragonquest 17y ago
  True, however wget seems like a good option. Try http://www.nowindows.net/wp/?p=94 http://www.nowindows.net/wp/?p=94
  - zandorg 17y ago
    It 503's if too many pages are requested at once... However, you can submit a link to the Internet Archive and they'll spider that Geocities site. I asked the IA to save all that data. I don't know if it was because of my suggestion, and it's still not a direct copy of the whole of Geocities, but it's a good thing. (Note: Yahoo links to the IA 'add url' thing, and it's really prominent in the Geocities help pages, so I think they've done a good job). http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/geocities/close/close-17.html http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/geocities/close/close-17.ht...
GiraffeNecktie 17y ago
So was GeoCities the FaceBook of 1999?
- TheBranca18 17y ago
  No. Not even close.
  - tibbon 17y ago
    No? While scale wise it obviously wasn't, in the mid to late 90's it was the place that most people had their first websites and communities grow. People act like 'the wall' on FB is something new. Hello? Guestbooks.
    - TheBranca18 17y ago
      I guess I didn't think of it that way. I was thinking more of the barrier for a regular user to get started. From what I remember, the wizard for a casual user wasn't that great, so knowing HTML was a necessity. But I could be wrong.
      - Kirby 17y ago
        Perhaps, but the perception of learning HTML being a barrier to entry was much smaller back then. People were excited to be part of something new, and didn't really balk at having to learn something. Totally different mentality today.
        tibbon 17y ago
        HTML was a bit easier, and few cared about web standards or accessibility- as long as it worked. We didn't have much javascript (and what we had was counters and similar), XML, RSS, Ajax, Rails sites, etc. Many of the sites were made in something like Frontpage even. There were templates and site makers, but also most people kept the stuff super simple. And just because it was more complex doesn't mean it wasn't important. It was the easiest thing to come along. Before that you had to set up a web server, buy a domain, etc...
- boredguy8 17y ago
  Perhaps a better analogy is MySpace, on account of the "copy/paste" approach people with little technical skill used to do things like add templates.
- brk 17y ago
  I've said several times that Facebook is the GeoCities of Web2.0 (and I ultimately think it will suffer the same fate). When GeoCities was in its prime it was pretty significant. Between some of the core features of GeoCities and add-ons like guestbooks, webrings, ICQ badges, etc., there was a good degree of "social networking", for the state of things at the time.
dotcoma 17y ago
well, GeoCities sure brought them a ton of users, and even if they were expensive compared to how Google or Facebook got their users, it was different back then, and buying a successful company may have been less expensive (and successful, at least) in the end than doing a lot of pointless tv commercials. BTW, getting rid of Yahoo! Games, Yahoo! Shopping, Zimbra (given how poor the current Yahoo! Mail is) and del.icio.us does not seem very wise to me...
- meterplech 17y ago
  they are focusing on their core-competencies. yahoo can't be the best at everything, so they are going to sell the things that are distracting them from the goods
  - padmapper 17y ago
    But as far as I can tell, the main thing they're good at is being a one-stop shop...
tibbon 17y ago
Textfiles has been working hard to make an archive of Geocities. I need to call Jason and see how that went.
- Mark_B 17y ago
  I wonder if anybody did something similar for Compuserve's version (ourworld.cs.com) before it closed up in July.
theklub 17y ago
I hope all of that information was saved somewhere. Although I'm sure most of it turned into wikipedia pages.
clutchski 17y ago
let its gifs spin forever in our minds.
- pavel_lishin 17y ago
  "Under destruction"
  - maukdaddy 17y ago
    Does this mean I need to adjust my webring? ;)
brown9-2 17y ago
Just because Yahoo spent $3.65 billion on this acquisition 10 years ago, and now they are shutting down the service, does not mean that the $3.65 billion was wasted. The article makes no mention of technology, users, services, etc, that may have been integrated into Yahoo from Geocities - which certainly would not be a waste. Just because they are now terminating the original service does not mean that the acquisition was a waste.
- pg 17y ago
  They got one of the most important things they wanted from Geocities, which was to remain the #1 (= most unique visitors) web site. That counted for a lot back then. Competitors like Lycos were pulling all kinds of tricks to jack up visitor numbers, like getting the NFL to put the Super Bowl web site at superbowl.lycos.com. One could argue that Yahoo overpaid to remain #1, but it was worth something. That was practically the only thing Yahoo got from Geocities though.
jimmyrcom 17y ago
Yahoo isn't dead yet? Don't forget their podcast.com Mark Cuban bs and saying $37 a share was too low for a microsoft aquisition.
- jimmyrcom 17y ago
  and this recently http://government.zdnet.com/?p=5547 http://government.zdnet.com/?p=5547
- skinnymuch 17y ago
  Their stock is pretty solid still.
raganwald 17y ago
Cynical thought: Is it really important to shutter these services to "focus on their core competencies" or is it really important to give Wall Street the appearance of doing something, anything? IOW, is Geocities really consuming management attention? is it losing buckets of money? Is it diluting Yahoo! brand? Or is this just a way of showing the world that management is "getting serious" and "making changes?"
- fizx 17y ago
  > IOW, is Geocities really consuming management attention? is it losing buckets of money? Is it diluting Yahoo! brand? Maybe it just has some good engineers tied up?
- skinnymuch 17y ago
  This is exactly what I've been wondering, with all the stuff Yahoo is shutting down.
mleonhard 17y ago
My first webpage was on GeoCities. I learned HTML and made my own bullet graphics. I scanned a tablecloth and made a tiling background with Paint Shop Pro. This was all on Windows 3.1 and IE2, if I remember correctly. Those were the days. :)
- brk 17y ago
  Wow, Windows 3.1. The TCP/IP stack on that was horrible, surprised to managed to get online ;)

32 points by insomniamedia 17y ago

Yep they have to consolidate their business there is a lot of waste there.

andr 17y ago

"To quickly download your published files, visit your GeoCities web site, right-click on each page, and choose Save Page As... from the menu that appears." Ouch! They could at least provide an export tool.

dragonquest 17y ago
True, however wget seems like a good option. Try http://www.nowindows.net/wp/?p=94 http://www.nowindows.net/wp/?p=94
- zandorg 17y ago
  It 503's if too many pages are requested at once... However, you can submit a link to the Internet Archive and they'll spider that Geocities site. I asked the IA to save all that data. I don't know if it was because of my suggestion, and it's still not a direct copy of the whole of Geocities, but it's a good thing. (Note: Yahoo links to the IA 'add url' thing, and it's really prominent in the Geocities help pages, so I think they've done a good job). http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/geocities/close/close-17.html http://help.yahoo.com/l/us/yahoo/geocities/close/close-17.ht...

GiraffeNecktie 17y ago

So was GeoCities the FaceBook of 1999?

TheBranca18 17y ago
No. Not even close.
- tibbon 17y ago
  No? While scale wise it obviously wasn't, in the mid to late 90's it was the place that most people had their first websites and communities grow. People act like 'the wall' on FB is something new. Hello? Guestbooks.
  - TheBranca18 17y ago
    I guess I didn't think of it that way. I was thinking more of the barrier for a regular user to get started. From what I remember, the wizard for a casual user wasn't that great, so knowing HTML was a necessity. But I could be wrong.
    - Kirby 17y ago
      Perhaps, but the perception of learning HTML being a barrier to entry was much smaller back then. People were excited to be part of something new, and didn't really balk at having to learn something. Totally different mentality today.
      - tibbon 17y ago
        HTML was a bit easier, and few cared about web standards or accessibility- as long as it worked. We didn't have much javascript (and what we had was counters and similar), XML, RSS, Ajax, Rails sites, etc. Many of the sites were made in something like Frontpage even. There were templates and site makers, but also most people kept the stuff super simple. And just because it was more complex doesn't mean it wasn't important. It was the easiest thing to come along. Before that you had to set up a web server, buy a domain, etc...
boredguy8 17y ago
Perhaps a better analogy is MySpace, on account of the "copy/paste" approach people with little technical skill used to do things like add templates.
brk 17y ago
I've said several times that Facebook is the GeoCities of Web2.0 (and I ultimately think it will suffer the same fate). When GeoCities was in its prime it was pretty significant. Between some of the core features of GeoCities and add-ons like guestbooks, webrings, ICQ badges, etc., there was a good degree of "social networking", for the state of things at the time.

dotcoma 17y ago

well, GeoCities sure brought them a ton of users, and even if they were expensive compared to how Google or Facebook got their users, it was different back then, and buying a successful company may have been less expensive (and successful, at least) in the end than doing a lot of pointless tv commercials. BTW, getting rid of Yahoo! Games, Yahoo! Shopping, Zimbra (given how poor the current Yahoo! Mail is) and del.icio.us does not seem very wise to me...

meterplech 17y ago
they are focusing on their core-competencies. yahoo can't be the best at everything, so they are going to sell the things that are distracting them from the goods
- padmapper 17y ago
  But as far as I can tell, the main thing they're good at is being a one-stop shop...

tibbon 17y ago

Textfiles has been working hard to make an archive of Geocities. I need to call Jason and see how that went.

Mark_B 17y ago
I wonder if anybody did something similar for Compuserve's version (ourworld.cs.com) before it closed up in July.

theklub 17y ago

I hope all of that information was saved somewhere. Although I'm sure most of it turned into wikipedia pages.

clutchski 17y ago

let its gifs spin forever in our minds.

pavel_lishin 17y ago
"Under destruction"
- maukdaddy 17y ago
  Does this mean I need to adjust my webring? ;)

brown9-2 17y ago

Just because Yahoo spent $3.65 billion on this acquisition 10 years ago, and now they are shutting down the service, does not mean that the $3.65 billion was wasted. The article makes no mention of technology, users, services, etc, that may have been integrated into Yahoo from Geocities - which certainly would not be a waste. Just because they are now terminating the original service does not mean that the acquisition was a waste.

pg 17y ago
They got one of the most important things they wanted from Geocities, which was to remain the #1 (= most unique visitors) web site. That counted for a lot back then. Competitors like Lycos were pulling all kinds of tricks to jack up visitor numbers, like getting the NFL to put the Super Bowl web site at superbowl.lycos.com. One could argue that Yahoo overpaid to remain #1, but it was worth something. That was practically the only thing Yahoo got from Geocities though.

jimmyrcom 17y ago

Yahoo isn't dead yet? Don't forget their podcast.com Mark Cuban bs and saying $37 a share was too low for a microsoft aquisition.

jimmyrcom 17y ago
and this recently http://government.zdnet.com/?p=5547 http://government.zdnet.com/?p=5547
skinnymuch 17y ago
Their stock is pretty solid still.

raganwald 17y ago

Cynical thought: Is it really important to shutter these services to "focus on their core competencies" or is it really important to give Wall Street the appearance of doing something, anything? IOW, is Geocities really consuming management attention? is it losing buckets of money? Is it diluting Yahoo! brand? Or is this just a way of showing the world that management is "getting serious" and "making changes?"

fizx 17y ago
> IOW, is Geocities really consuming management attention? is it losing buckets of money? Is it diluting Yahoo! brand? Maybe it just has some good engineers tied up?
skinnymuch 17y ago
This is exactly what I've been wondering, with all the stuff Yahoo is shutting down.

mleonhard 17y ago

My first webpage was on GeoCities. I learned HTML and made my own bullet graphics. I scanned a tablecloth and made a tiling background with Paint Shop Pro. This was all on Windows 3.1 and IE2, if I remember correctly. Those were the days. :)

brk 17y ago
Wow, Windows 3.1. The TCP/IP stack on that was horrible, surprised to managed to get online ;)