The world surely has changed since the heydays of the late 90’s. It’s been a little over 10 years since Yahoo acquired Geocities for nearly $5bn. Yahoo announced today that it would be shutting down it’s Geocities service – it seems that free websites are on their way out? Clearly, I have a lot vested in this industry (especially since Yola (previously SynthaSite) recently raised $20m in funding for a “free websites” business model) – so I thought that I should at least try to provide an insider’s view of this sector and how it’s changed (and is still changing).
Yahoo has finally proved that the old advertising model on free websites will not stand the test of time. Yahoo placed advertising on all the Geocities websites – and clearly, this model failed. At Yola we purposefully do not place any ads on our users’ website – it makes no sense to us, for many reasons, including the fact that our users do not want it in the first place. We offer an advertising-free free website service – plain and simple. The quick observation is that if Yahoo, which is an advertising juggernaut, cannot monetize it’s free website service with advertising – how do we even stand a chance? We’re not even trying to…
That business model is so Web 1.0! Bandwidth costs were high, storage, computing & technology costs were high and you needed large data centers and many engineers to keep the lights on. Geocities built their business model upon an age old premise, that sites are expensive to host and therefore you needed to run advertising on each page in order to monetize pageviews and generate sufficient revenue to cover costs. Enter Web 2.0 – bandwidth is dirt cheap, and so is computing power ( which is available on demand via the cloud, almost like a utility). The economics have changed and advertising on our users websites is no longer the only way to generate revenues. Yahoo build a revenue base for Geocities around advertising, and as advertisers got smarter and understood the value of that inventory – when rates dropped, they did not have alternative income streams to fall back on. In addition Yahoo also sported a desktop based application which was heavyweight and did not work on multiple platforms (unlike Yola – which is entirely browser based). The costs of maintaining this piece of technology (written in Java) for the desktop exceeded the revenues – basically, the business model did not scale and also was not well leveraged. This resulted in a broken business model.
The demands among Web users have changed as well. Web users, and particularly small businesses, don’t just want an online presence (which was Geocities key value proposition), they want a professional-looking site that they can quickly and affordably build and the tools to help themselves and/or their businesses succeed (online marketing, commerce capabilities, etc.) – and that’s what we’re about. Meanwhile Geocities, while once revolutionary in the space, has failed to meet users’ changing needs and as a result, has been shut down.
We believe the model of the future is to create a platform that anyone can use to create their own personal or business website – and then we are able to sell add-on services (domains, templates, etc.) that allow the users to further customize their websites. Hosting & bandwidth is and should always be free to the end user. I look at the Internet as a really big LAN (Local Area Network). Why would you pay to transfer files across a LAN? Also, people can currently get free web pages in a limited sense through various providers, but a page with ads is like a social network site or similar – and not a true, professional web presence. People are sophisticated enough to want real websites, and that is what we offer them. And, when you provide a valuable service, your customers becomes loyal advocates, and you succeed if you have a profitable business model.
My most recent blog post was about freemium business models and how startups should consider moving away from advertising based business models, and focus on charging their customers for add on services (premium services). In order to build a long term sustainable business, you need to understand what value you’re creating as a company, and who would be willing to pay for it and build your revenue streams around that. Advertisers are just not willing to support websites that do not deliver ROI anymore – the game is changing…
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Comments On This Post
April 23, 2009 at 4:27 pm
I agree, and the fact that Geocities websites tend to be low quality reduces even further the worth of any advertising placed there.
Yola's model seems to make a lot more sense.
It's interesting that even with bandwidth and hosting costs dropping, Yahoo decided to scrap the whole thing rather than change models.
April 23, 2009 at 12:31 pm
[...] Weebly chief executive David Rusenko and Yola chief executive Vinny Lingham have both written blog posts weighing in, arguing that their business models (free website tools and hosting, then selling [...]
April 23, 2009 at 12:42 pm
[...] business model is so Web 1.0,†says Yola CEO Vinny Lingham in a blog post. “Yahoo has finally proved that the old advertising model on free websites will not stand the [...]
April 23, 2009 at 1:11 pm
[...] Weebly chief executive David Rusenko and Yola chief executive Vinny Lingham have both written blog posts weighing in, arguing that their business models (free website tools and hosting, then selling [...]
April 23, 2009 at 1:44 pm
[...] Lingham, founder of Yola (formally SynthaSite) wrote in response that the GeoCities closure proves that the advertising model for ‘free websites’ does [...]
April 23, 2009 at 2:30 pm
[...] Lingham, founder of Yola (formally SynthaSite) argues that the GeoCities closure proves that the advertising model for ‘free websites’ [...]
April 23, 2009 at 2:35 pm
[...] Lingham, founder of Yola (formally SynthaSite) wrote in response that the GeoCities closure proves that the advertising model for ‘free websites’ does not work. [...]
April 23, 2009 at 2:44 pm
[...] Lingham, founder of Yola (formally SynthaSite) argues that the GeoCities closure proves that the advertising model for ‘free websites’ doesn’t work. [...]
April 23, 2009 at 3:02 pm
[...] Lingham, founder of Yola (formally SynthaSite) argues that the GeoCities closure proves that the advertising model for ‘free websites’ doesn’t work. [...]
April 23, 2009 at 6:35 pm
[...] Geschäfte machen (Hypermart, Beep, Beep, Beep oder z.B. Yola.com, die Kapstädter Wurzeln haben über die ich diese Nachricht erhalten habe) ist scheinbar an Yahoo in den letzten Jahren komplett [...]
April 23, 2009 at 10:17 pm
[...] Lingham, founder of Yola (formally SynthaSite), argues that the GeoCities closure proves that the advertising model for ‘free websites’ [...]
April 23, 2009 at 11:13 pm
[...] Lingham, founder of Yola (formally SynthaSite), argues that the GeoCities closure proves that the advertising model for ‘free websites’ [...]
April 24, 2009 at 6:30 pm
Hi Vinny,
Really enjoy reading your posts they always seem to make so much sense.
You absolutely right in this day and age the consumer wants a real website that they can control and monetize themselves.
Really look forward to seeing your premium templates. Easy, clean & simple…always works!
I believe the market is ready, willing & able to pay when they are able to see the value.
Best regards,
Jeffrey
P.S Enjoy Cape Town!
April 24, 2009 at 7:52 pm
Really enjoy reading your posts they always seem to make so much sense.
You absolutely right in this day and age the consumer wants a real website that they can control and monetize themselves.
thanks for sharing great article………….
April 25, 2009 at 5:26 pm
it is quite amazing how these 5 billion dollars disappeared in smoke so fast. On the other hand goecities had completely disappear (as well) from the recent web2.0 landscape. So A led to B.
April 25, 2009 at 12:35 pm
[...] what is possibly the final death knell for web 1.0, Yahoo announced this week that Geocities would shortly be closing it’s doors for good, with the growth of social [...]
April 30, 2009 at 1:37 pm
Yahoo Inc announced that its going to shutdown GeoCities a free website-design service which the firm purchased for $3-billion in 1999.
this is so stupid.
May 1, 2009 at 3:10 pm
Yahoo keeps struggling with their strategy. They also promised to make GeoCities more functional, but to me this wasn't the result after 10 years.
May 1, 2009 at 4:11 pm
I'm sorry but geocities was a complete waste of time and I think that Yahoo are absolutely correct to make this decision because to me, they just smacked of low grade sites and I think Yahoo should be commended for making such a tough call, even though they knew that they would get hammered by a lot of people for making this decision.
May 12, 2009 at 12:58 am
ha ha, i got the 2 years free Dreahost hosting and domain …
lucky me
May 12, 2009 at 9:50 am
Hi,You always have something new in your post.Really impessed.Day by day the consumer wants a real website that they can control and monetize themselves.
May 12, 2009 at 8:57 pm
yahoo's president is such an idiot, he will never find an offer like 48 billion anymore…
May 13, 2009 at 2:38 pm
I still remember my first website that was designed with the online editor of Geocities…Back then if you needed web hosting you didn’t had many options. Too bad Yahoo decided to shut down Geocities. Much of useful information is still stored there. It makes me wonder when so gigantic companies aren’t able to offer enough resources in order to keep alive such a project. After Geocities, many web hosting companies arise, such as Tripod. I read at your article that Yahoo couldn’t sustain in life Geocities due to extensive bandwidth costs. Why didn’t host it to an unlimited web hosting provider for only 1 dollar per month
?
May 15, 2009 at 2:23 am
geocities was a complete waste of time and I think that Yahoo are absolutely correct to make this decision
May 16, 2009 at 4:54 pm
It's so bad, I started working with Geocities 8 years ago with my first site. What a history of the internet.
May 16, 2009 at 5:05 pm
I think it was a correct decision. Yahoo just waste their times with GeoCities.
May 16, 2009 at 10:16 pm
Semms like yet again Vinny is on the money!
May 18, 2009 at 9:15 am
geocities was a waste
May 23, 2009 at 10:05 pm
Is it lack of interest and their strategic failure? If Yola can be evolved then why geocities can't be transformed to a useful product for yahoo and all the world? To be very true, I think Yahoo would disappear in next 10-15 years.
May 26, 2009 at 3:13 pm
Interesting post, I didn't know Geocities was being shut down. I remember when it was one of the leading free website providers, along with Angelfire. You are right, the entire business model was very Web 1.0 and they did not evolve to meet the changing needs of the internet user. All we can do now is learn from the experiences of others and try not to make the same mistakes.
May 27, 2009 at 4:12 am
Fantatic site, I remember getting my first introduction into building websites with geocities. Not that I have used it in many many years but it is sort of a shame to see it go.
May 27, 2009 at 5:55 am
Its a pitty. But the world and the web changes, so if you don´t really develop youself there will be no future – like everywhere
May 27, 2009 at 9:28 pm
Now, free blog hosting like wordpress and blogspot make people change from make a website to using blog. not only for personal or diary but also for business, even a mainstream media use wordpress
May 30, 2009 at 9:33 pm
I think it should be closed many years ago. It is just a failed service. I think no one is going to create free pages because it is so easy to build full sites or to use other social media sites. I can see many other services by yahoo which are going to be popular(Like Buzz and answers).
June 4, 2009 at 1:02 am
There are lots of alt free hosting service do not worry about Geocities.
June 5, 2009 at 8:34 pm
so how does yola make money? what is the business model (could u explain it?)
June 5, 2009 at 10:45 pm
geocities was the first company to offer free webpages (not really websites in my view). Today, there is free hosting offered everywhere which includes databases, so there is no real need for this anymore. Every geocities website I run into on the web hasn't been updated in 10 years anyways.
June 7, 2009 at 2:32 pm
i am really newbie about website..will you tell me more about geocities ? anyway i like your blog…
June 13, 2009 at 4:20 pm
Many have predicted this coming plus with the recession. Now its just a matter of time before Google cut off Youtube
June 17, 2009 at 12:32 pm
I worked too much with geocities. Its not giving me good feeling that it will not be available to me.
June 18, 2009 at 8:03 pm
What I find amazing is how so many people STILL to this day are using Geocities as their main website. I have even noticed some folks that have their own domains FORWARDING to their geocities account. With hosting and registration so low now why don't these people figure it out?
June 18, 2009 at 8:55 pm
i do have geocities site two years before… i stopped updating it coz they are not reliable for me! so i did it with my blog
June 18, 2009 at 9:08 pm
This is evolution, old thing close, but new will rise.
But how many world wide did use it?
June 19, 2009 at 1:37 am
Free sites really are getting more and more useless. Although everyone wants to save money with a rapidly increasing number of real paid hosted sites free sites just cant compete.
June 19, 2009 at 1:57 am
I will miss Geocities,brings back some memories
June 19, 2009 at 6:10 am
My first site has been created on free service Yahoo Geocities. Now I use paid decisions, but memory about Geocities remained
June 20, 2009 at 11:26 am
i used to have an account but stop using it because its freespace was not enough for me.
June 20, 2009 at 12:16 pm
i made my my site on geocities before 6 years and i can't forget that moment, thanks again for remembering about my past
June 20, 2009 at 11:04 pm
I'm surprised it took this long. Also, SYNTHASITE is a bad bet. The net is moving towards SOCIAL NETWORKED user content. We're past the user content phase. It's all about virally spreading that content. Synthasite's model is stationary.
June 20, 2009 at 11:18 pm
Geocities a first free host i'm using for start learning build a site
But now i know many free host more better than geocities
so i think yahoo just waste a time with geocities
June 20, 2009 at 5:55 pm
Damn, this is sad news….
June 21, 2009 at 4:25 am
I think it's time; no one can respect your website if it's hosted on geocities although I have hosted there when I was like 13!
June 21, 2009 at 4:53 am
very sad to see this
i used geocities much when the free hosting was really in demand
June 21, 2009 at 11:34 am
i'll miss geocities..
many memories
June 21, 2009 at 12:18 pm
The first site I ever made was on Geocities too. it's sad to see this.
June 21, 2009 at 4:05 pm
People used paid domains on Geocities account, it's a shame they will shutdown I hope they at least give the users time to backup all there information/websites.
June 21, 2009 at 6:40 pm
TBH, Geocities is my first page on net! And its make me sad.. Even i could change it with Free 2 Yrs o Dreamhost services…
June 22, 2009 at 1:47 pm
I hope no one got affected by the shutdown I know a lot of geocitie sites that had useful information not found anywhere else. We have to keep on looking into the future I guess.
June 22, 2009 at 2:11 pm
I really do hope they allow them to have a backup because I know a lot of geocities sites that have good info on them.
June 26, 2009 at 1:25 pm
yeah, for the last 2 or 3 years geocities has been a fairly redundant entity in terms of web hits and advertising profit. Within the next few years I can see very much the same thing happening to similar websites, as the modern internet user develops and expands their needs.
June 26, 2009 at 1:36 pm
I never like using geocities,
June 28, 2009 at 5:33 pm
Are u sure if yahoo will shut down geocities??
oh my god…(-_-)…
I'm so sad about that..
June 28, 2009 at 6:47 pm
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June 29, 2009 at 1:35 am
yeah geocities were too oldies, they havent do nothing to expand or improve. but this accident were giving great bonus for me, i got free dreamhost hosting for two years.
June 29, 2009 at 2:03 am
So much money in this evolution…. Hope it is gonna be the best for the user.
June 29, 2009 at 2:26 am
i was heard this news too, they said it wil sold to dreamhost
June 29, 2009 at 5:16 am
yeah it's call regeneration, an all about the money too .. that yahoo need to develop more new invention to rise their income..
June 29, 2009 at 5:55 am
however google map is beter. but it will give other choice for user.
regards
rusli zainal sang visioner
June 29, 2009 at 9:04 am
I think it was a correct decision. Yahoo just waste their times with GeoCities.
June 29, 2009 at 9:06 am
I will miss Geocities,brings back some memories
June 29, 2009 at 9:38 pm
To be honest, I liked Geocites a lot.
June 30, 2009 at 1:10 am
geocites, is dea
June 30, 2009 at 1:10 am
geocites, is dea
July 2, 2009 at 2:23 pm
Yahoo must be had good reason to shutdown its services. Like 360 degree that yahoo going to shutdown soon
July 3, 2009 at 10:08 pm
Geocities is useless, I agree if yahoo could shutdown geocities
July 4, 2009 at 9:07 pm
Geocities was great but now we have to move on to new free hosts ^^
July 6, 2009 at 12:18 am
I've been use geocities since 9 years ago and they give more benefit for me. I think its not great time to shutdown geocities. Just need more developement only.
July 6, 2009 at 7:36 am
Although it seems to have an unprofessional look because of it's ads, it's a great chance for newbie web designers to design their first site.
July 6, 2009 at 7:38 am
I have tried Geocities a few years back but I haven't updated mine since the site kinda looks boring and full of ads so I switch to Blogger to create a new blog.
July 6, 2009 at 12:36 pm
My first site has been created on free service Yahoo Geocities. Now I use paid decisions, but memory about Geocities remained
July 7, 2009 at 11:24 am
Thanks for share. I was heared about it.
July 8, 2009 at 8:17 am
R.I.P geocities and the many awful websites I created as a small child.
July 9, 2009 at 7:02 am
I remember starting out with Geocities so many years ago, about the same time that yahoo chat was first begining. My how things have changed.
July 9, 2009 at 9:09 am
You will be missed Geocities, it's were me and a lot of friends started off on the internet.
July 9, 2009 at 9:53 am
I remember when Geocities was first initiated,sad to see it go,but I guess with so much bigger and better technologies it was inevitible. It's good to see some people care enough to miss the "good ole days".
July 10, 2009 at 4:27 am
It's interesting that even with bandwidth and hosting costs dropping, Yahoo decided to scrap the whole thing rather than change models
July 10, 2009 at 10:06 am
I've just known that yahoo shut down geocities.
maybe they have greater plan 4 tmrrw.
July 10, 2009 at 10:08 am
I hope it is for the better service
July 10, 2009 at 10:10 am
geocities??? weeeeekkkssss….
P
July 11, 2009 at 9:59 am
I believe yahoo take a big move with closed geocities also to motivate people who have their own personal business to made a website up and more professional.
http://www.edenburgh.org
July 11, 2009 at 4:36 pm
I know it will happen. Very few people use geocities already.
July 13, 2009 at 4:30 am
.will you tell me more about geocities ?
http://www.kotakasu.com
July 13, 2009 at 6:44 am
may be yahoo has some other plans !!
July 13, 2009 at 2:31 pm
My first HTML site was on Geocities and I paid the 5 bucks a month to remove ads. Yahoo is a headless business entity bumping around in it's eternal night. Someone do them a favor and buy them and fire the entire management.
July 15, 2009 at 11:24 am
"Yahoo has finally proved that the old advertising model on free websites will not stand the test of time. Yahoo placed advertising on all the Geocities websites – and clearly, this model failed."
I guess Yahoo Geocities would not really stand the test of time, what with the presence of the other free web hosting services, such as Yola, which ensure that no ads would be posted on your site. These ad-free hosting services are really a great deal better than one which would just fill your site with advertisement. For one, an ad-free web hosting would give your site a professional look. It would also render credibility to it. But the question is, in Yola and in other free-web hosting services, how much web hosting space can you really get? And are the features they offer better than that of Geocities?
July 15, 2009 at 1:44 pm
Hi,
I think you’re absolutely right.thank you very much.
July 16, 2009 at 9:44 pm
Vinny, great thoughts, who wants a site plastered with advertising, way back when geocities first started, I had a site hosted with them and I believe it didn't initially start out with advertising on the sites, however when advertising started to be placed on the sites it wasn't long before geocities went to crap.
As the web becomes more and more social, providing people with web space (presence) to express themselves (take a look at MySpace for instance) is a great idea, additionally allowing people to learn and become invested in their websites/hobbies makes for great opportunity to upsell.
July 18, 2009 at 7:14 am
nothing free host again…:'(
July 19, 2009 at 6:32 pm
This was the bad news with lots of people but with me, I did not like this free web hosting service much.
July 19, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Great post my friend..
Thank's for your info
July 20, 2009 at 1:39 am
“how startups should consider moving away from advertising based business models, and focus on charging their customers for add on services”
It just seems like a huge risk to the user since the company is a start-up and they may be hesitant to buy into their services.
July 20, 2009 at 7:07 am
“Yahoo placed advertising on all the Geocities websites – and clearly, this model failed.”
Geocities failing marks man’s reason taking full control in utilizing the web. I’m sure years from now the next generation will be using a different platform for web hosting.
July 20, 2009 at 7:56 am
The people over at Yahoo fail utterly. They have such a lucrative business and they can't make money off it? Wow. No wonder Google is ROMP a DOMP DOMP'ing them.
July 20, 2009 at 8:54 am
Thats really a bad news for me…..
July 20, 2009 at 12:13 pm
I think no one is going to create free pages because it is so easy to build full sites or to use other social media sites.
July 22, 2009 at 2:03 am
Its a pitty. But the world and the web changes, so if you don´t really develop youself there will be no future – like everywhere
July 22, 2009 at 7:49 am
great webpage
July 22, 2009 at 8:54 am
I read at your article that Yahoo couldn’t sustain in life Geocities due to extensive bandwidth costs. Why didn’t host it to an unlimited web hosting provider for only 1 dollar per month
July 22, 2009 at 8:56 am
Interesting post, I remember getting my first introduction into building websites with geocities. Not that I have used it in many many years but it is sort of a shame to see it go.
July 22, 2009 at 1:58 pm
Now geocities has been really shutdown, I think yahoo can't develope this site, and geocities not too popular, not like other.
July 22, 2009 at 6:48 pm
Wow, I had no idea, not that I have used Geocities for many many years, but I remember back in the days when Geocities first came out. My how things have changed.
July 24, 2009 at 9:56 pm
You have a nice site…
Keep writing
THank's
July 26, 2009 at 12:50 pm
Many have predicted this coming plus with the recession. Now its just a matter of time before Google cut off Youtube
July 27, 2009 at 7:47 am
Interesting post, I didn't know Geocities was being shut down. geocities was the first company to offer free webpages (not really websites in my view).
July 29, 2009 at 8:47 am
Well I moved my Geocities site to a new location. http://ithascome.bravehost.com It was/is my first and only site. I did not want to let all that work go down the tubes. My site is not all that fancy but it tells the story. I think those old fashion sites need to stay around… it reminds us of the Internet roots. So my site will be here to stay.
July 29, 2009 at 5:29 pm
While we will miss geocities there are a new things to look forward too just like everything else.
July 30, 2009 at 7:26 am
I tried using Yahoo Geocities before Yahoo shut it down. I can say that it's a good move to shut that down since there are much more better sites like Blogger and Wordpress.
Watch One Piece Online
July 30, 2009 at 10:36 pm
Wow, it used to be that nearly every day I would see a geocities site.
Now I can't remember the last time saw one – probably why they are closing it down.
It's now easier to use social network sites and wordpress.
August 2, 2009 at 5:56 am
Yahoo would be shutting down Geocities. This implies that advertising models will not stand the test of time. So did Yahoo lost a great deal with its Geocities?
August 4, 2009 at 10:24 am
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August 4, 2009 at 10:25 am
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August 7, 2009 at 2:48 am
thx for information…, not a big surprise if geocities has been shutdown, infact social networking and free file sharing such as you tube, facebook more popular than geocities.
August 7, 2009 at 2:54 am
i think reccesion is one of the reason yahoo geocities shut down and also geocities not so popular…i think people more like to blogging like wordpress and blogspot..more easy..
August 7, 2009 at 1:52 pm
Yahoo is making a lot of different changes these days that I think will end up benefiting them greatly in the future.
August 7, 2009 at 10:09 pm
This just shows how bad yahoo is at managing their businesses. If they can't make money off Yahoo it shows their incompetence.
August 9, 2009 at 9:22 pm
I really enjoy your posts as they always seem to make so much sense.
This day and age the consumer wants a real website that they can control themselves. I believe the market is ready, willing & able to pay when they are able to see the value.
Keep posting – great stuff!
August 10, 2009 at 2:32 am
it's really a bad news for them that use this services.
August 11, 2009 at 10:41 am
Wow I remember using Geocities probably a good 10 years ago. Sure the service isn't great and I found it didn't offer enough freedom when I was learning to design. It was a great starting point though, would be a shame to see it go like a lot of other Yahoo things.
August 11, 2009 at 11:47 pm
My very first site was on Geocities,Kind of a shame to see it go, but I guess its out with the old and in with the new.
August 12, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Very i nteresting post, I didn't know Geocities was being shut down. Many have predicted this coming plus with the recession. Now its just a matter of time before Google cut off Youtube . I run a registry cleaner reviews website and I know how hard it is.
August 13, 2009 at 6:07 pm
Oww thanks very loll..gr
August 13, 2009 at 7:53 pm
Geocities was pretty outdated and either needed to shut down or do a total revamp. Kind of sad to see it go though as I first got my start on geocities.
August 13, 2009 at 9:17 pm
Grrr… I have a lot of website on Geocities, fortunately I buy some domain name for my new website.
August 14, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Interesting concept. But really, how many people use it?
August 14, 2009 at 2:40 pm
Can't believe people are still using geocities..
August 15, 2009 at 3:45 am
good comment
August 15, 2009 at 8:15 am
Free websites of the past were terrible so unless the standard could improved it is no surprise there was no money it it. Time has moved on and the standard of site has improved a long way since geocities,
dave
August 15, 2009 at 11:26 am
That's very sad. I personally used Geocitie. Maybe Google is also planning to cut off Myspace too . We have a Best Work at Home Reviews website and I see how many people are wandering of what is going on.
August 18, 2009 at 4:49 pm
Oh well what’s $5 Billion amongst friends.
August 20, 2009 at 1:27 pm
One of my first websites I used GeoCities; my childhood memories are slowly dying…
August 22, 2009 at 7:05 am
Yahoo Inc announced that its going to shutdown GeoCities a free website-design service which the firm purchased for $3-billion in 1999.
this is bad. This was the bad news with lots of people but with me, I did not like this free web hosting service much.
August 23, 2009 at 3:47 am
Its not what it used to be I tell you that! Geo cities used to be amazing for a newbie!
August 23, 2009 at 8:44 am
I think geocities from yahoo not poppular againt blogger form google. Yahoo cannot development geocities. Well nice post
August 23, 2009 at 9:50 pm
Now, I can’t using geocities..
I hate this…:)
August 23, 2009 at 11:58 pm
I just wondering if yola use free hosting without any ads, how you monetize your service.
August 24, 2009 at 9:35 pm
Yahoo did nothing to improve Geocities and their decision is absolutely normal,the costs are much higher than revenue.I wonder if they develop something instead.
August 27, 2009 at 8:51 am
I have never use geocites. The are other same site?
August 27, 2009 at 9:56 pm
I’ve checked out both Geocities and your site Yola, and charging for premium services does make a lot more sense than throwing advertising on the page itself. I say it was about time Yahoo closed down Geocities, that’s for sure!
August 30, 2009 at 9:48 am
Good point, I didn’t see the point of Geocities anyway…
August 30, 2009 at 11:16 am
I’ll miss all those terribly designed websites with flashing backgrounds and photos of cats
August 31, 2009 at 1:56 am
I wonder why there are still people who are using Geocities?
September 8, 2009 at 3:16 am
I’m kind of glad they are dropping it. GeoCities used to be a really great place to have a home brew website. I met many friends there. Once GeoCities sold to Yahoo, it went by the wayside. Yahoo can’t manage anything without it being destroyed. I was so hoping that Microsoft would have bought Yahoo outright.
September 8, 2009 at 6:25 am
I’m pretty surprised at Yahoo for doing this as it was a revenue stream for them with the ads on the websites.
September 18, 2009 at 8:29 am
I agree with this decision as Geocites as a free service tend to lower the quality of Yahoo overall.
September 21, 2009 at 8:36 pm
I think it is a good decision to shut down geocities. I think it’s time came and went and well, no sense keeping it around.
September 28, 2009 at 2:05 am
Interesting post, I didn’t know Geocities was being shut down. I remember when it was one of the leading free website providers, along with Angelfire. You are right, the entire business model was very Web 1.0 and they did not evolve to meet the changing needs of the internet user.
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October 15, 2009 at 3:40 am
I’m surprised it took this long. Also, SYNTHASITE is a bad bet. The net is moving towards SOCIAL NETWORKED user content. We’re past the user content phase. It’s all about virally spreading that content. Synthasite’s model is stationary.
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October 16, 2009 at 7:38 am
Maybe they realize that the should be making money than giving free service like.
October 16, 2009 at 12:14 pm
I didn’t even know that Geocities still existed. I remember it being around many years ago, way back when Yahoo dominated the Search Engine Wars. Not even sure why they held on to it for so long…
October 17, 2009 at 11:15 pm
Vinny, you have very smartly and effectively brought out the reasons leading to the closing down of Geocites – infact you have touched the right nerve and diagonised the disease ailing Geocities. I’ve checked Yola and I must say that its really great. I’m definitely going to start my next niche site at Yola, you’ll have really great features available at the most decent prices, whats more helpful then getting free hosting. I’ve also noted that you’ll have removed all factors that plagued geocities. I think I’m amazed is to think that why did Yahoo close Geocities when they could have shifted to your model.
October 18, 2009 at 1:28 pm
It very sad story. i have a lot of website on that.
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