Today the Internet lost a vanguard in the form of Geocities, at one point a dominant player in web-hosting and one of the first sites to offer the service to individuals on a massive scale and for free.  Utilizing a unique “neighborhood” design, users would be assigned to a particular sub-section depending on the focus of their site (such as “Petsburgh” for sites focusing on pets, or “HotSprings” for health and fitness).  It was a pioneer in bringing the power of personal expression and discourse ubiquitous to the Internet the masses, in large part because it made the creation process so simple.

Though it is often forgotten today with services such as WordPress, Blogger, MySpace, and other sites providing simple webpage templates, but  in Geocities’s infancy back in the mid-90s you needed to know at least a workable amount of HTML to create a page and maintain it.  Geocities was one of the first sites that offered a simple site generator that required minimal knowledge of HTML, and made it simple to add such “cool” features as a visitor counter, guestbook (a forbearer to comments sections today), and various HTML/text effects.  Sure, that sometimes resulted in some pretty awful looking pages, but it still helped to break down a massive wall blocking individuals from venturing onto the information superhighway (the go-to buzzword at the time).  Today this level of streamlining is expected, but back then it was a godsend for those wanting to dip their toes into the digital stream without first having to don waders.  In fact, it is fair to say that sites like MySpace, Friendster, and much of social media owe at least part of their existence to the pre-fabricated little ‘burbs that sprung out from Geocities.

As one analyst put it, “[i]t was was the first proof that you could have something really popular and still not make any money on the internet.“  Of course, this inability to generate sustainable revenue was a major reason why the service was discontinued by Yahoo!, which had been underperforming in recent quarters and needed to streamline its business somewhat.  Coupled with a shift in how people express themselves on the Internet – “ shifting away from isolated Web pages [and instead using] social-networking sites such as Facebook, with built-in features for creating a profile, staying in touch with contacts, and maintaining at least a little privacy,” it seemed that Geocities’s days were numbered.

Of course, with any passing, there are tributes to past glory as well as those who look to cull some message or greater meaning from its end.  In my opinion, Geocities ultimate demise was due to the same factor most sites wrestle with – they could not sufficiently monetize the immense traffic they received effectively.  Sure, Geocities adopted the tried-and-true banner ads, and I’m sure that generated revenue to a point.  But successful advertising on the web is elusive, and I have my doubts that it will ever be a viable option for sustaining a large hosting service like Geocities, Blogspot,  or Facebook.  Of course, people will point to Google as an example of a company profiting from ads, but Google is an extremely unique case – they are a leader in so many facets of the Internet (searching, email, blog hosting, etc.) and are so diverse in their holdings that they almost “had” to make money.  Their dominant position, though, is unique to them alone, and by its nature could never be duplicated by other companies.

It will be interesting to see if the next generation of user-generated service companies such as Facebook and Youtube find a way become profitable based on their users; my guess is that Geocities’s failings had less to do with its own inability to evolve or poor management as it did with the realities of the Internet, where paying for services sometimes seems sacrilegious.

But as for Geocities, I’ll miss it.  Back in high school, I actually used them to host an early web page shortly after I learned how to “code” in HTML.  I have no idea what happened to that site, but it was certainly fun to lay claim to a small plot of cyberspace for my very own.  Plus, as someone with precious little artistic talent, it was somewhat liberating to design a page that looked unique, if not a bit cool.  So R.I.P. Geocities, and hopefully people won’t ever forget how pioneering it was to have an address CollegePark.

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