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Wikipedia

GeoCities

September 27, 2023

"Geocities" redirects here. For the song by Lemon Demon, see Geocities (song).

GeoCities, later Yahoo! GeoCities, was a web hosting service that allowed users to create and publish websites for free and to browse user-created websites by their theme or interest. GeoCities was started in November 1994 by David Bohnett and John Rezner, and was named Beverly Hills Internet briefly before being renamed GeoCities.[1] On January 28, 1999, it was acquired by Yahoo!,[2] at which time it was reportedly the third-most visited website on the World Wide Web.[3]

GeoCities
2009–2019 logo
Type of site
Web hosting service
Owner
  • GeoCities (1994–1999)
  • Yahoo! (1999–2009)
Created byDavid Bohnett and John Rezner
CommercialYes
RegistrationYes
LaunchedNovember 1994; 28 years ago (1994-11)
Current statusInactive since 2009
(Japanese version inactive since 2019)

In its original form, site users selected a "city" in which to list the hyperlinks to their Web pages. The "cities" were named after real cities or regions according to their content: For example, computer-related sites were placed in "SiliconValley" and those dealing with entertainment were assigned to "Hollywood", hence the name of the site. Soon after its acquisition by Yahoo!, this practice was abandoned in favor of using the Yahoo! member names in the URLs.

In April 2009,[4] the company announced that it would end the United States GeoCities service on October 26, 2009.[5][6][7]

There were at least 38 million pages displayed by GeoCities before it was terminated, most user-written.[8] The GeoCities Japan version of the service endured until March 31, 2019.[9]

History Edit

 
The first GeoCities logo (1995–1998)

GeoCities began during mid-1995 as BHI, which stood for Beverly Hills Internet, a small Web hosting and development company in southern California.[10]

The company created its own Web directory, organized thematically as six so-called "neighborhoods". The neighborhoods 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, with 2 MB of space provided at the time.[11] During the registration process, new members chose to which neighborhood they wanted to belong. This neighborhood became part of the member's Web address along with a sequentially assigned "street address" number to make the URL unique (for example, "www.geocities.com/RodeoDrive/number"). Chat, bulletin boards, and other elements of "community" were added soon afterward, helping foster rapid growth. On July 5, 1995, GeoCities added additional cities, including "CapitolHill", "Paris", "SiliconValley", and "Tokyo".[10] By December 1995, the company, which now had a total of 14 neighborhoods, was registering thousands of Homesteaders a day and getting more than six million monthly page views. GeoCities never enforced neighborhood-specific content; for example, a "Hollywood" homesteader could be nothing but a college student's home page. The company decided to emphasize increasing membership and community, and on December 15, 1995, BHI became known as GeoCities after having also been named Geopages.[12] At that time GeoCities was headquartered at 9401 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills, California.[12] By December 1996, it was headquartered on the third floor of 1918 Main Street in nearby Santa Monica, with an office on the 8th floor of the Pershing Square Building at 125 Park Avenue in New York City.[13]

 
The second and last GeoCities logo of 1998–1999

Over time, many companies, including Yahoo!, invested extensively in GeoCities and, with the introduction of paid premium services, the site continued to grow. During May 1997, GeoCities introduced advertisements on its pages.[11] Despite negative reaction from users, GeoCities continued to grow compared to rivals. Competition in web hosting came from the likes of Tripod and Angelfire. By June 1997, GeoCities was the fifth most popular website on the Web, and by October of that year the company had registered its millionth Homesteader.[citation needed]

During June 1998, in an effort to increase brand awareness, GeoCities introduced a watermark to user Web pages. The watermark, much like an onscreen graphic on some television channels, was a transparent floating GIF image that used JavaScript to stay displayed on the bottom right corner of the browser screen. Many users felt the watermark interfered with the design of their Web site and threatened to relocate their Web pages elsewhere. The implementation of the watermark preceded the widespread adoption of CSS and the standardized Document Object Model and had cross-browser problems. However, GeoCities said in a press release that feedback regarding the watermark had been overwhelmingly positive.[14]

The company became corporate during August 1998, being listed with the NASDAQ exchange with the code GCTY. The initial public offering price was $17, increasing rapidly after the initial offering to a maximum of more than $100. By 1999 GeoCities was the third-most visited site of the World Wide Web, behind AOL and Yahoo!.[3] The headquarters had been relocated to 4499 Glencoe Avenue in Los Angeles, near the Marina del Rey area of Los Angeles County.[15]

Acquisition by Yahoo! Edit

 
The first Yahoo! GeoCities logo (1999–2009)

During January 1999, near the maximum of the dot-com bubble, GeoCities was purchased by Yahoo! for $3.57 billion in stock, with Yahoo! taking control on May 28.[4][16][17] The acquisition proved unpopular; users began to quit en masse in protest at the new terms of service specified by Yahoo! for GeoCities.[18] The terms stated that the company owned all rights and content, including media such as pictures. Yahoo! quickly reversed its decision.[18] During July 1999, Yahoo! switched from neighborhood and street addresses Uniform Resource Locators (URLs) for homesteaders to "vanity" URLs through members' registration names to Yahoo! ("www.geocities.com/membername"). This service was offered previously only as a premium.

During 2001, amid speculation by analysts that GeoCities was not yet profitable (it having declared an $8 million loss for the final quarter of 1998), Yahoo! introduced a for-fee premium hosting service at GeoCities[19] and reduced the accessibility of free and low-price hosting accounts by limiting their data transfer rate for Web page visitors; since that time the data transfer limit for free accounts was said to be limited to 3 GB per month, but was enforced as a limit of about 4.2 MB per hour.[20] The paid accounts were later unified in the Yahoo! Web Hosting service, with higher data transfer limits.[21] During 2001, a rumor began that GeoCities was to be terminated; the chain e-mail making that claim cited an article in The New York Times that stated the opposite.[22]

Closure Edit

On April 23, 2009, Yahoo! announced that it would be terminating its United States version of GeoCities, and stopped accepting new registrations, though the existing GeoCities accounts remained active.[6] During late June 2009, Yahoo! updated the GeoCities home page to indicate: "GeoCities is closing on October 26, 2009."[5][23] GeoCities joined a long list of other services discontinued by Yahoo, such as Farechase, LAUNCHcast, My Web, Audio Search, Pets, Photos, Live, Kickstart, Briefcase, Webmessenger, and Yahoo! Teachers.[24]

With the termination of GeoCities in the U.S., Yahoo! no longer offered free web page hosting, except in Japan, where the service continued for ten more years.[25] Yahoo! encouraged users to upgrade their accounts to the fee-based Yahoo! Web Hosting service.[26][27]

Rupert Goodwins, the editor of ZDNet, perceived the termination of GeoCities as an end of an era; he described GeoCities as "the first proof that you could have something really popular and still not make any money on the internet."[25] Vijay Mukhi, an internet and cybersecurity expert quoted in the Business Standard, criticized Yahoo's management of GeoCities; Mukhi described GeoCities as "a lost opportunity for Yahoo!", adding that "they could have made it a Facebook if they wanted." Rich Skrenta, the CEO of Blekko, posted on Twitter an offer to take over GeoCities from Yahoo! in exchange for 50% future revenue share.[28]

In response to the termination, rival Web hosting services began to compete for the sites formerly displayed by GeoCities. For instance, German Web host Jimdo started the "Lifeboat for GeoCities" service to encourage GeoCities users to display their sites on Jimdo.[3][29] Geocities-closing.com, started by GeoCities competitor uCoz, is a similar project begun to save GeoCities websites.[30]

Many of the webpages formerly hosted by GeoCities remained accessible, but could not be updated, until 2014. Attempts to access any page using the original GeoCities URL formerly redirected to Yahoo! Small Business,[31] but now redirect to the Yahoo! main page.

Archiving efforts Edit

Soon after the GeoCities termination announcement, the Internet Archive announced a project to archive GeoCities pages, stating "GeoCities has been an important outlet for personal expression on the Web for almost 15 years." Internet Archive made it their task to ensure the thoroughness and completeness of their archive of GeoCities sites.[32] The former Web site InternetArchaeology.org also archived and showcased artifacts from GeoCities.[33] The operators of the site Reocities downloaded as much of the content hosted on GeoCities as they could before it ended, in an attempt to create a mirror of GeoCities, albeit an incomplete one.[34]

Another site attempting to build an archive of defunct GeoCities sites is GeoCities.ws.[35] There is no formal relationship between GeoCities and geocities.ws, as it is a completely different company. Many sites were duplicated automatically from GeoCities to geocities.ws many months after the termination of GeoCities. Geocities.ws also promised free hosting, and for eight years this has been the case, as of January 2018. Other sites with this purpose were WebCite, as well as now-defunct Geociti.es[36] (closed 2011), Oocities.org and Ge.ocities.org.

On the first anniversary of GeoCities' termination, Archive Team announced that they would release a torrent file archive of 641 GB (prior to 7z compression, it was approximately 900 GB of data),[37] and did so on October 29, 2010.[38] On April 9, 2011, Archive Team released a patch for the first GeoCities torrent.[39][40]

Neighborhoods Edit

In its original form, site users selected a so-called "city" in which to list the hyperlinks to their Web pages.[41] The "cities" were named after real cities or regions according to their content: For example, computer-related sites were displayed in "SiliconValley" and those dealing with entertainment were assigned to "Hollywood", hence the name of the site. Soon after its acquisition by Yahoo!, this practice was abandoned in favor of using the Yahoo! member names in the URLs. During 1996, GeoCities had 29 "neighborhoods," which had groupings of content created by the "homesteaders" (GeoCities users).[42] By 1999, GeoCities had additional neighborhoods and refocused existing neighborhoods.[43]

GeoCities Marketplace Edit

During 1999, GeoCities included GeoCities Marketplace, a commercial website. It included the GeoStore, which sold GeoCities-branded merchandise. Users cashed in GeoPoints in the store.[44]

GeoCities Japan Edit

Prior to the acquisition by Yahoo!, GeoCities had a Japanese subsidiary, GeoCities Japan. GeoCities Japan had headquarters in the Nihonbashi Hakozaki Building in the Nihonbashi area of Chūō, Tokyo.[45] As of February 10, 2016, GeoCities Japan was still online. Its member sites were still accessible. It was still accepting new account registrations, but services were only available in Japanese.[9]

On October 1, 2018, Yahoo! Japan announced the termination of GeoCities Japan effective March 31, 2019.[46][47]

Japan neighborhoods Edit

GeoCities Japan had the following neighborhoods:[48]

  • WallStreet (ウォール街, Wōrugai): Finance and business
  • Epicurean Table (エピキュリアンテーブル, Epikyurian Tēburu): Dining
  • Colosseum (コロシアム, Koroshiamu): Outdoor sports and health
  • SiliconValley (シリコンバレー, Shirikon Barē): Computers and the internet
  • SilkRoad (シルクロード, Shiruku Rōdo): Travel
  • Technopolis (テクノポリス, Tekunoporisu): Science and high technology
  • Berkeley (バークレイ, Bākurei): Education and student life
  • Heartland (ハートランド, Hātorando): Family and pets
  • Hollywood (ハリウッド, Hariuddo): Films and performing arts
  • Playtown (プレイタウン, Pureitaun): Video games
  • Broadway (ブロードウェイ, Burōdowei): Pop, rock music, and concerts
  • Milano (ミラノ, Mirano): Fashion, design, and shopping
  • Milkyway (ミルキーウェイ, Mirukīwei): Dating
  • MotorCity (モーターシティ, Mōtā Shiti): Automobiles and motorcycles

Reception Edit

The domain geocities.com attracted at least 177 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete.com study.[49]

ComScore stated that the GeoCities had 18.9 million unique visitors from the U.S. during March 2006. During March 2008 GeoCities had 15.1 million unique U.S. visitors. During March 2009 GeoCities had 11.5 million unique visitors, a 24% decrease from March 2008.[6]

In 2017 indie-developer Jay Tholen created the game Hypnospace Outlaw, which was heavily influenced by GeoCities.

In February 2022 the website remake called NeoCities Neighborhoods was created, featuring the same interface that the original 1996 version had.

Litigation Edit

During 1999, a complaint was instituted against GeoCities stating that the corporation violated the provisions of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914, specifically 15 U.S.C. § 45, which states in relevant part, "Unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce, and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce, are hereby declared unlawful." The FTC found that GeoCities was engaged in deceptive acts and practices in contravention to their stated privacy act. Subsequently, a consent order was entered into, prohibiting GeoCities from misrepresenting the purpose for which it collects and/or uses personal identifying information from consumers. A copy of the complaint and order can be found at (page 94).[50]

GeoCities provided free home pages and e-mail address to children and adults who provided personally identifying and demographic information when they registered for the website. At the time of the complaint, GeoCities had more than 1.8 million members who were "homesteaders". GeoCities illegally permitted third-party advertisers to promote products targeted to GeoCities' 1.8 million users, by using personally identifiable information obtained in the registration process. These acts and practices affected "commerce" as defined in Section 4 of the Federal Trade Commission.[50]

The problem of GeoCities was that it placed a privacy statement on its New Member Application Form and on its website promising that it would never give personally identifying information to anyone without the user's permission. GeoCities sold personal information to third parties who used the information for purposes other than those for which members gave permission.[50]

It was ordered that GeoCities would not make any misrepresentation, in any manner about its collection or use of personal identifying information, including what information will be disclosed to third parties. GeoCities was not allowed to collect personal identifying information from any child if GeoCities had actual knowledge that the child did not have their parents' permission to provide the information.[50]

See also Edit

References Edit

  1. ^ McCullough, Brian (May 11, 2015). . Internet History Podcast. Archived from the original (interview podcast) on May 28, 2015.
  2. ^ (Press release). Santa Clara, California: Yahoo!. January 28, 1999. Archived from the original on May 2, 2006. Retrieved April 19, 2021.
  3. ^ a b c Marshall, Rosalie (April 24, 2009). . Vnunet. Archived from the original on April 26, 2009. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
  4. ^ a b "Yahoo! buys GeoCities". CNN.com. January 28, 1999. from the original on April 7, 2018.
  5. ^ a b Fox, Geoff (July 10, 2009). "Yahoo Sets the Date of GeoCities' Death". PCMag.com. from the original on August 31, 2010. Retrieved November 5, 2010.
  6. ^ a b c Rao, Leena (April 23, 2009). "Yahoo Quietly Pulls The Plug On GeoCities". TechCrunch. from the original on June 2, 2009. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
  7. ^ Millian, Mark (October 26, 2009). "GeoCities' time has expired, Yahoo closing the site today". LA Times (blog). from the original on December 21, 2012.
  8. ^ Shechmeister, Matthew (November 3, 2009). "Ghost Pages: A Wired.com Farewell to GeoCities". Wired.com. from the original on January 15, 2012. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
  9. ^ a b "Yahoo!ジオシティーズ". Geocities.yahoo.co.jp. from the original on February 24, 2012. Retrieved October 1, 2018.
  10. ^ a b . Business Wire. July 5, 1995. Archived from the original on January 8, 2014. Retrieved August 22, 2013.
  11. ^ a b Edwards, Benj (August 24, 2021). "Remembering GeoCities, the 1990s Precursor to Social Media". How-To Geek. Retrieved December 1, 2021.
  12. ^ a b . Business Wire. December 14, 1995. Archived from the original on December 11, 2008. Retrieved May 1, 2009.
  13. ^ . GeoCities. December 19, 1996. Archived from the original on December 19, 1996. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
  14. ^ Hu, Jim (June 28, 1998). "GeoCitizens fume over watermark". CNet. from the original on August 5, 2009.
  15. ^ . GeoCities. February 22, 1999. Archived from the original on February 2, 1999. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
  16. ^ Nuttall, Chris (January 29, 1999). "Yahoo! moves in on GeoCities". BBC News. from the original on April 27, 2009. Retrieved June 3, 2009.
  17. ^ Narasimhan, Balaji (April 27, 2009). . Mid-Day. Archived from the original on July 11, 2009. Retrieved May 3, 2009.
  18. ^ a b "Yahoo Angers GeoCities Members With Copyright Rules". The New York Times. June 30, 1999. from the original on July 25, 2009. Retrieved June 3, 2009.
  19. ^ Schiffman, Betsy (August 28, 2001). "A Community That Stays Together, Pays Together". Forbes. from the original on July 21, 2009. Retrieved June 3, 2009.
  20. ^ "Data Transfer". Retrieved June 5, 2010.
  21. ^ . Archived from the original on November 23, 2005. Retrieved June 5, 2010.
  22. ^ "GeoCities Closing". Snopes. April 25, 2009. Retrieved May 3, 2009.[unreliable source?]
  23. ^ . Yahoo! Geocities. Archived from the original on August 9, 2011. Retrieved August 7, 2011.
  24. ^ . Calgary Herald. April 24, 2009. Archived from the original on April 27, 2009. Retrieved August 7, 2011 – via Reuters.
  25. ^ a b . BBC. April 24, 2009. Archived from the original on May 1, 2009. Retrieved May 5, 2009.
  26. ^ Yahoo!. . Yahoo! Help. Archived from the original on April 27, 2009.
  27. ^ Yahoo! (October 2009). "GeoCities Closing". from the original on October 18, 2009. Retrieved October 30, 2009.
  28. ^ D'Monte, Leslie (April 25, 2009). . Business Standard. Archived from the original on July 22, 2009. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
  29. ^ . Jimdo. Archived from the original on May 3, 2009. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
  30. ^ . Archived from the original on October 11, 2009. Retrieved October 8, 2009.
  31. ^ . Yahoo! Small Business. Archived from the original on July 4, 2015. Retrieved July 4, 2015.
  32. ^ Internet Archive (2009). "Saving a Historical Record of GeoCities". Retrieved August 17, 2009.
  33. ^ Tech Crunch (2009). "Internet Archeology: In which the Internet's sordid past is preserved and curated". from the original on October 13, 2009. Retrieved October 20, 2009.
  34. ^ "The Geocities Gallery 2009-10-29 at the Wayback Machine." Reocities. 2009. Retrieved on October 27, 2009.
  35. ^ . Archived from the original on October 30, 2009. Retrieved December 12, 2009.
  36. ^ . Geociti.es. Archived from the original on December 21, 2010. Retrieved January 9, 2013.
  37. ^ Scott, Jason (October 27, 2010). "Archiveteam! The Geocities Torrent". ASCII by Jason Scott. from the original on March 8, 2018. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  38. ^ Masnick, Mike (October 29, 2010). "Archive Of Geocities Released As A 1TB Torrent". Techdirt. Floor64. from the original on January 16, 2018. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  39. ^ . Archiveteam.org. Archived from the original on April 10, 2011. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
  40. ^ "Difference between revisions of "GeoCities Torrent Patch" – Archiveteam". www.archiveteam.org. April 9, 2011. from the original on January 16, 2018. Retrieved January 16, 2018.
  41. ^ Sreenivasan, Sreenath (March 17, 1997). "New Neighborhood, No Money Down". The New York Times. from the original on July 8, 2021. Retrieved July 8, 2021.
  42. ^ a b c . GeoCities. December 19, 1996. Archived from the original on December 19, 1996. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
  43. ^ . GeoCities. February 9, 1999. Archived from the original on February 9, 1999. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
  44. ^ . GeoCities. February 9, 1999. Archived from the original on February 9, 1999. Retrieved May 1, 2009.
  45. ^ [Staff recruitment]. GeoCities Japan (in Japanese). Archived from the original on February 21, 1999. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
  46. ^ Nao Iizuka (October 1, 2018). 「Yahoo!ジオシティーズ」、2019年3月末でサービス終了へ ["Yahoo! GeoCities" to end service as of the end of March 2019]. CNET Japan (in Japanese). Retrieved October 1, 2018.
  47. ^ サービス終了のお知らせ [Notice of service termination]. Yahoo! Japan (in Japanese). from the original on December 4, 2018. Retrieved December 16, 2018.
  48. ^ . GeoCities Japan. February 20, 1999. Archived from the original on February 20, 1999. Retrieved April 30, 2009.
  49. ^ United States. . Siteanalytics.compete.com. Archived from the original on December 20, 2011. Retrieved February 20, 2012.
  50. ^ a b c d (PDF). Archived from the original (PDF) on May 11, 2009.

External links Edit

  • One-hour audio interview with GeoCities founder David Bohnett on the creation, evolution, sale, and eventual demise of GeoCities (2015)

September 27, 2023
geocities, geocities, redirects, here, song, lemon, demon, geocities, song, later, yahoo, hosting, service, that, allowed, users, create, publish, websites, free, browse, user, created, websites, their, theme, interest, started, november, 1994, david, bohnett,. Geocities redirects here For the song by Lemon Demon see Geocities song GeoCities later Yahoo GeoCities was a web hosting service that allowed users to create and publish websites for free and to browse user created websites by their theme or interest GeoCities was started in November 1994 by David Bohnett and John Rezner and was named Beverly Hills Internet briefly before being renamed GeoCities 1 On January 28 1999 it was acquired by Yahoo 2 at which time it was reportedly the third most visited website on the World Wide Web 3 GeoCities2009 2019 logoType of siteWeb hosting serviceOwnerGeoCities 1994 1999 Yahoo 1999 2009 Created byDavid Bohnett and John ReznerCommercialYesRegistrationYesLaunchedNovember 1994 28 years ago 1994 11 Current statusInactive since 2009 Japanese version inactive since 2019 In its original form site users selected a city in which to list the hyperlinks to their Web pages The cities were named after real cities or regions according to their content For example computer related sites were placed in SiliconValley and those dealing with entertainment were assigned to Hollywood hence the name of the site Soon after its acquisition by Yahoo this practice was abandoned in favor of using the Yahoo member names in the URLs In April 2009 4 the company announced that it would end the United States GeoCities service on October 26 2009 5 6 7 There were at least 38 million pages displayed by GeoCities before it was terminated most user written 8 The GeoCities Japan version of the service endured until March 31 2019 9 Contents 1 History 1 1 Acquisition by Yahoo 1 2 Closure 1 3 Archiving efforts 2 Neighborhoods 3 GeoCities Marketplace 4 GeoCities Japan 4 1 Japan neighborhoods 5 Reception 6 Litigation 7 See also 8 References 9 External linksHistory Edit nbsp The first GeoCities logo 1995 1998 GeoCities began during mid 1995 as BHI which stood for Beverly Hills Internet a small Web hosting and development company in southern California 10 The company created its own Web directory organized thematically as six so called neighborhoods The neighborhoods 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 with 2 MB of space provided at the time 11 During the registration process new members chose to which neighborhood they wanted to belong This neighborhood became part of the member s Web address along with a sequentially assigned street address number to make the URL unique for example www geocities com RodeoDrive number Chat bulletin boards and other elements of community were added soon afterward helping foster rapid growth On July 5 1995 GeoCities added additional cities including CapitolHill Paris SiliconValley and Tokyo 10 By December 1995 the company which now had a total of 14 neighborhoods was registering thousands of Homesteaders a day and getting more than six million monthly page views GeoCities never enforced neighborhood specific content for example a Hollywood homesteader could be nothing but a college student s home page The company decided to emphasize increasing membership and community and on December 15 1995 BHI became known as GeoCities after having also been named Geopages 12 At that time GeoCities was headquartered at 9401 Wilshire Boulevard in Beverly Hills California 12 By December 1996 it was headquartered on the third floor of 1918 Main Street in nearby Santa Monica with an office on the 8th floor of the Pershing Square Building at 125 Park Avenue in New York City 13 nbsp The second and last GeoCities logo of 1998 1999 Over time many companies including Yahoo invested extensively in GeoCities and with the introduction of paid premium services the site continued to grow During May 1997 GeoCities introduced advertisements on its pages 11 Despite negative reaction from users GeoCities continued to grow compared to rivals Competition in web hosting came from the likes of Tripod and Angelfire By June 1997 GeoCities was the fifth most popular website on the Web and by October of that year the company had registered its millionth Homesteader citation needed During June 1998 in an effort to increase brand awareness GeoCities introduced a watermark to user Web pages The watermark much like an onscreen graphic on some television channels was a transparent floating GIF image that used JavaScript to stay displayed on the bottom right corner of the browser screen Many users felt the watermark interfered with the design of their Web site and threatened to relocate their Web pages elsewhere The implementation of the watermark preceded the widespread adoption of CSS and the standardized Document Object Model and had cross browser problems However GeoCities said in a press release that feedback regarding the watermark had been overwhelmingly positive 14 The company became corporate during August 1998 being listed with the NASDAQ exchange with the code GCTY The initial public offering price was 17 increasing rapidly after the initial offering to a maximum of more than 100 By 1999 GeoCities was the third most visited site of the World Wide Web behind AOL and Yahoo 3 The headquarters had been relocated to 4499 Glencoe Avenue in Los Angeles near the Marina del Rey area of Los Angeles County 15 Acquisition by Yahoo Edit nbsp The first Yahoo GeoCities logo 1999 2009 During January 1999 near the maximum of the dot com bubble GeoCities was purchased by Yahoo for 3 57 billion in stock with Yahoo taking control on May 28 4 16 17 The acquisition proved unpopular users began to quit en masse in protest at the new terms of service specified by Yahoo for GeoCities 18 The terms stated that the company owned all rights and content including media such as pictures Yahoo quickly reversed its decision 18 During July 1999 Yahoo switched from neighborhood and street addresses Uniform Resource Locators URLs for homesteaders to vanity URLs through members registration names to Yahoo www geocities com membername This service was offered previously only as a premium During 2001 amid speculation by analysts that GeoCities was not yet profitable it having declared an 8 million loss for the final quarter of 1998 Yahoo introduced a for fee premium hosting service at GeoCities 19 and reduced the accessibility of free and low price hosting accounts by limiting their data transfer rate for Web page visitors since that time the data transfer limit for free accounts was said to be limited to 3 GB per month but was enforced as a limit of about 4 2 MB per hour 20 The paid accounts were later unified in the Yahoo Web Hosting service with higher data transfer limits 21 During 2001 a rumor began that GeoCities was to be terminated the chain e mail making that claim cited an article in The New York Times that stated the opposite 22 Closure Edit On April 23 2009 Yahoo announced that it would be terminating its United States version of GeoCities and stopped accepting new registrations though the existing GeoCities accounts remained active 6 During late June 2009 Yahoo updated the GeoCities home page to indicate GeoCities is closing on October 26 2009 5 23 GeoCities joined a long list of other services discontinued by Yahoo such as Farechase LAUNCHcast My Web Audio Search Pets Photos Live Kickstart Briefcase Webmessenger and Yahoo Teachers 24 With the termination of GeoCities in the U S Yahoo no longer offered free web page hosting except in Japan where the service continued for ten more years 25 Yahoo encouraged users to upgrade their accounts to the fee based Yahoo Web Hosting service 26 27 Rupert Goodwins the editor of ZDNet perceived the termination of GeoCities as an end of an era he described GeoCities as the first proof that you could have something really popular and still not make any money on the internet 25 Vijay Mukhi an internet and cybersecurity expert quoted in the Business Standard criticized Yahoo s management of GeoCities Mukhi described GeoCities as a lost opportunity for Yahoo adding that they could have made it a Facebook if they wanted Rich Skrenta the CEO of Blekko posted on Twitter an offer to take over GeoCities from Yahoo in exchange for 50 future revenue share 28 In response to the termination rival Web hosting services began to compete for the sites formerly displayed by GeoCities For instance German Web host Jimdo started the Lifeboat for GeoCities service to encourage GeoCities users to display their sites on Jimdo 3 29 Geocities closing com started by GeoCities competitor uCoz is a similar project begun to save GeoCities websites 30 Many of the webpages formerly hosted by GeoCities remained accessible but could not be updated until 2014 Attempts to access any page using the original GeoCities URL formerly redirected to Yahoo Small Business 31 but now redirect to the Yahoo main page Archiving efforts Edit Soon after the GeoCities termination announcement the Internet Archive announced a project to archive GeoCities pages stating GeoCities has been an important outlet for personal expression on the Web for almost 15 years Internet Archive made it their task to ensure the thoroughness and completeness of their archive of GeoCities sites 32 The former Web site InternetArchaeology org also archived and showcased artifacts from GeoCities 33 The operators of the site Reocities downloaded as much of the content hosted on GeoCities as they could before it ended in an attempt to create a mirror of GeoCities albeit an incomplete one 34 Another site attempting to build an archive of defunct GeoCities sites is GeoCities ws 35 There is no formal relationship between GeoCities and geocities ws as it is a completely different company Many sites were duplicated automatically from GeoCities to geocities ws many months after the termination of GeoCities Geocities ws also promised free hosting and for eight years this has been the case as of January 2018 update Other sites with this purpose were WebCite as well as now defunct Geociti es 36 closed 2011 Oocities org and Ge ocities org On the first anniversary of GeoCities termination Archive Team announced that they would release a torrent file archive of 641 GB prior to 7z compression it was approximately 900 GB of data 37 and did so on October 29 2010 38 On April 9 2011 Archive Team released a patch for the first GeoCities torrent 39 40 Neighborhoods EditIn its original form site users selected a so called city in which to list the hyperlinks to their Web pages 41 The cities were named after real cities or regions according to their content For example computer related sites were displayed in SiliconValley and those dealing with entertainment were assigned to Hollywood hence the name of the site Soon after its acquisition by Yahoo this practice was abandoned in favor of using the Yahoo member names in the URLs During 1996 GeoCities had 29 neighborhoods which had groupings of content created by the homesteaders GeoCities users 42 By 1999 GeoCities had additional neighborhoods and refocused existing neighborhoods 43 Area51 and Vault Science fiction and fantasy conspiracy theories Athens and Acropolis Teaching education reading writing and philosophy Augusta Golf Baja Off road SUVs and adventure travel BourbonStreet Jazz music Cajun cuisine New Orleans and Southern United States topics Broadway Theater and performing arts CapeCanaveral and Lab Science technology engineering mathematics and aviation CapitolHill Politics and government CollegePark and Quad University life Colosseum Field and Loge Athletics and sports EnchantedForest Topics of interest to children Eureka Small business and home offices Fashion Avenue Fashion Heartland and Plains Parenting and family originally also focused on pets 42 Hollywood and Hills Films and actors HotSprings Health and fitness MadisonAvenue Advertising MotorCity Automobiles and racing and dodge cars NapaValley Wine gastronomy Nashville Country music Paris Rue and LeftBank Romance poetry and the arts for Paris and France related topics such as food and culture around 1996 42 Pentagon Military Petsburgh Pets PicketFence Home improvement and real estate Pipeline Extreme sports RainForest Conservation RodeoDrive Shopping and luxury lifestyles ResearchTriangle Research and development technology SiliconValley Heights Park and Pines Computers hardware programming and technology SoHo and Lofts Art and writing SouthBeach and Marina A high style hot spot for hanging out meeting and greeting seeing and being seen SunsetStrip Vine Alley Palms Studio and Towers Music such as blues grunge punk rock and rock n roll TheTropics and Shores Travel and vacations TelevisionCity Television TimesSquare and Arcade Computer and video games Tokyo Far East related topics including anime Vienna Ballet classical music and opera WallStreet Business and finance Wellesley Women related topics WestHollywood Gay lesbian bisexual and transgender topics Yosemite Outdoor recreation including climbing hiking rafting and skiingGeoCities Marketplace EditDuring 1999 GeoCities included GeoCities Marketplace a commercial website It included the GeoStore which sold GeoCities branded merchandise Users cashed in GeoPoints in the store 44 GeoCities Japan EditPrior to the acquisition by Yahoo GeoCities had a Japanese subsidiary GeoCities Japan GeoCities Japan had headquarters in the Nihonbashi Hakozaki Building in the Nihonbashi area of Chuō Tokyo 45 As of February 10 2016 GeoCities Japan was still online Its member sites were still accessible It was still accepting new account registrations but services were only available in Japanese 9 On October 1 2018 Yahoo Japan announced the termination of GeoCities Japan effective March 31 2019 46 47 Japan neighborhoods Edit GeoCities Japan had the following neighborhoods 48 WallStreet ウォール街 Wōrugai Finance and business Epicurean Table エピキュリアンテーブル Epikyurian Teburu Dining Colosseum コロシアム Koroshiamu Outdoor sports and health SiliconValley シリコンバレー Shirikon Bare Computers and the internet SilkRoad シルクロード Shiruku Rōdo Travel Technopolis テクノポリス Tekunoporisu Science and high technology Berkeley バークレイ Bakurei Education and student life Heartland ハートランド Hatorando Family and pets Hollywood ハリウッド Hariuddo Films and performing arts Playtown プレイタウン Pureitaun Video games Broadway ブロードウェイ Burōdowei Pop rock music and concerts Milano ミラノ Mirano Fashion design and shopping Milkyway ミルキーウェイ Mirukiwei Dating MotorCity モーターシティ Mōta Shiti Automobiles and motorcyclesReception EditThe domain geocities com attracted at least 177 million visitors annually by 2008 according to a Compete com study 49 ComScore stated that the GeoCities had 18 9 million unique visitors from the U S during March 2006 During March 2008 GeoCities had 15 1 million unique U S visitors During March 2009 GeoCities had 11 5 million unique visitors a 24 decrease from March 2008 6 In 2017 indie developer Jay Tholen created the game Hypnospace Outlaw which was heavily influenced by GeoCities In February 2022 the website remake called NeoCities Neighborhoods was created featuring the same interface that the original 1996 version had Litigation EditDuring 1999 a complaint was instituted against GeoCities stating that the corporation violated the provisions of the Federal Trade Commission Act of 1914 specifically 15 U S C 45 which states in relevant part Unfair methods of competition in or affecting commerce and unfair or deceptive acts or practices in or affecting commerce are hereby declared unlawful The FTC found that GeoCities was engaged in deceptive acts and practices in contravention to their stated privacy act Subsequently a consent order was entered into prohibiting GeoCities from misrepresenting the purpose for which it collects and or uses personal identifying information from consumers A copy of the complaint and order can be found at 127 F T C 94 page 94 50 GeoCities provided free home pages and e mail address to children and adults who provided personally identifying and demographic information when they registered for the website At the time of the complaint GeoCities had more than 1 8 million members who were homesteaders GeoCities illegally permitted third party advertisers to promote products targeted to GeoCities 1 8 million users by using personally identifiable information obtained in the registration process These acts and practices affected commerce as defined in Section 4 of the Federal Trade Commission 50 The problem of GeoCities was that it placed a privacy statement on its New Member Application Form and on its website promising that it would never give personally identifying information to anyone without the user s permission GeoCities sold personal information to third parties who used the information for purposes other than those for which members gave permission 50 It was ordered that GeoCities would not make any misrepresentation in any manner about its collection or use of personal identifying information including what information will be disclosed to third parties GeoCities was not allowed to collect personal identifying information from any child if GeoCities had actual knowledge that the child did not have their parents permission to provide the information 50 See also Edit nbsp Greater Los Angeles portal nbsp Companies portal nbsp Internet portalAngelfire AOL Hometown Google Sites Neocities Tripod Homepages Web 1 0References Edit McCullough Brian May 11 2015 DAVID BOHNETT FOUNDER OF GEOCITIES Internet History Podcast Archived from the original interview podcast on May 28 2015 Yahoo To Acquire Geocities Press release Santa Clara California Yahoo January 28 1999 Archived from the original on May 2 2006 Retrieved April 19 2021 a b c Marshall Rosalie April 24 2009 Yahoo closing Geocities web hosting service Vnunet Archived from the original on April 26 2009 Retrieved April 30 2009 a b Yahoo buys GeoCities CNN com January 28 1999 Archived from the original on April 7 2018 a b Fox Geoff July 10 2009 Yahoo Sets the Date of GeoCities Death PCMag com Archived from the original on August 31 2010 Retrieved November 5 2010 a b c Rao Leena April 23 2009 Yahoo Quietly Pulls The Plug On GeoCities TechCrunch Archived from the original on June 2 2009 Retrieved April 30 2009 Millian Mark October 26 2009 GeoCities time has expired Yahoo closing the site today LA Times blog Archived from the original on December 21 2012 Shechmeister Matthew November 3 2009 Ghost Pages A Wired com Farewell to GeoCities Wired com Archived from the original on January 15 2012 Retrieved February 20 2012 a b Yahoo ジオシティーズ Geocities yahoo co jp Archived from the original on February 24 2012 Retrieved October 1 2018 a b Beverly Hills Internet builder of interactive cyber cities launches 4 more virtual communities linked to real places SiliconValley CapitolHill Paris and Tokyo offer free homesteads to residents of BHI s GeoCities Business Wire July 5 1995 Archived from the original on January 8 2014 Retrieved August 22 2013 a b Edwards Benj August 24 2021 Remembering GeoCities the 1990s Precursor to Social Media How To Geek Retrieved December 1 2021 a b Beverly Hills Internet Builder of Web Communities Changes Name to GeoCities Monthly Page Business Wire December 14 1995 Archived from the original on December 11 2008 Retrieved May 1 2009 Advertising and Sponsorship Information GeoCities December 19 1996 Archived from the original on December 19 1996 Retrieved April 30 2009 Hu Jim June 28 1998 GeoCitizens fume over watermark CNet Archived from the original on August 5 2009 Contact GeoCities GeoCities February 22 1999 Archived from the original on February 2 1999 Retrieved April 30 2009 Nuttall Chris January 29 1999 Yahoo moves in on GeoCities BBC News Archived from the original on April 27 2009 Retrieved June 3 2009 Narasimhan Balaji April 27 2009 The death of GeoCities Mid Day Archived from the original on July 11 2009 Retrieved May 3 2009 a b Yahoo Angers GeoCities Members With Copyright Rules The New York Times June 30 1999 Archived from the original on July 25 2009 Retrieved June 3 2009 Schiffman Betsy August 28 2001 A Community That Stays Together Pays Together Forbes Archived from the original on July 21 2009 Retrieved June 3 2009 Data Transfer Retrieved June 5 2010 GeoCities PLUS and WebHosting Starter Archived from the original on November 23 2005 Retrieved June 5 2010 GeoCities Closing Snopes April 25 2009 Retrieved May 3 2009 unreliable source What if I didn t save my files and images Yahoo Geocities Archived from the original on August 9 2011 Retrieved August 7 2011 Yahoo abandoning GeoCities Calgary Herald April 24 2009 Archived from the original on April 27 2009 Retrieved August 7 2011 via Reuters a b Yahoo pulls the plug on GeoCities BBC April 24 2009 Archived from the original on May 1 2009 Retrieved May 5 2009 Yahoo GeoCities will close later this year Yahoo Help Archived from the original on April 27 2009 Yahoo October 2009 GeoCities Closing Archived from the original on October 18 2009 Retrieved October 30 2009 D Monte Leslie April 25 2009 Yahoo writes GeoCities obituary Business Standard Archived from the original on July 22 2009 Retrieved April 30 2009 Jimdo s Lifeboat for GeoCities Jimdo Archived from the original on May 3 2009 Retrieved April 30 2009 GeoCities Shuts It Doors and Thousands of Sites Could be Lost But There Are Other Options Archived from the original on October 11 2009 Retrieved October 8 2009 Geocities has shut down Yahoo Small Business Archived from the original on July 4 2015 Retrieved July 4 2015 Internet Archive 2009 Saving a Historical Record of GeoCities Retrieved August 17 2009 Tech Crunch 2009 Internet Archeology In which the Internet s sordid past is preserved and curated Archived from the original on October 13 2009 Retrieved October 20 2009 The Geocities Gallery Archived 2009 10 29 at the Wayback Machine Reocities 2009 Retrieved on October 27 2009 GeoCities ws Archived from the original on October 30 2009 Retrieved December 12 2009 Geocities is Dead An Archive Team Exhibit Geociti es Archived from the original on December 21 2010 Retrieved January 9 2013 Scott Jason October 27 2010 Archiveteam The Geocities Torrent ASCII by Jason Scott Archived from the original on March 8 2018 Retrieved January 16 2018 Masnick Mike October 29 2010 Archive Of Geocities Released As A 1TB Torrent Techdirt Floor64 Archived from the original on January 16 2018 Retrieved January 16 2018 GeoCities Patch Archiveteam org Archived from the original on April 10 2011 Retrieved February 20 2012 Difference between revisions of GeoCities Torrent Patch Archiveteam www archiveteam org April 9 2011 Archived from the original on January 16 2018 Retrieved January 16 2018 Sreenivasan Sreenath March 17 1997 New Neighborhood No Money Down The New York Times Archived from the original on July 8 2021 Retrieved July 8 2021 a b c 29 Neighborhoods GeoCities December 19 1996 Archived from the original on December 19 1996 Retrieved April 30 2009 Visit these neighborhoods GeoCities February 9 1999 Archived from the original on February 9 1999 Retrieved April 30 2009 GeoCities Marketplace GeoCities February 9 1999 Archived from the original on February 9 1999 Retrieved May 1 2009 スタッフ募集 Staff recruitment GeoCities Japan in Japanese Archived from the original on February 21 1999 Retrieved April 30 2009 Nao Iizuka October 1 2018 Yahoo ジオシティーズ 2019年3月末でサービス終了へ Yahoo GeoCities to end service as of the end of March 2019 CNET Japan in Japanese Retrieved October 1 2018 サービス終了のお知らせ Notice of service termination Yahoo Japan in Japanese Archived from the original on December 4 2018 Retrieved December 16 2018 コミュニティ GeoCities Japan February 20 1999 Archived from the original on February 20 1999 Retrieved April 30 2009 United States GeoCities attracts almost 180m visitors online yearly Siteanalytics compete com Archived from the original on December 20 2011 Retrieved February 20 2012 a b c d FTC gov PDF Archived from the original PDF on May 11 2009 External links EditOne hour audio interview with GeoCities founder David Bohnett on the creation evolution sale and eventual demise of GeoCities 2015 Retrieved from https en wikipedia org w index php title GeoCities amp oldid 1177280779, wikipedia, wiki, book, books, library,

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