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Yahoo pulls the plug on Geocities


ianw1974
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Yahoo is to close its personal web hosting site GeoCities later this year.

 

In a statement, the firm says it will no longer be accepting new customers and will focus on helping "customers build new relationships online". At its peak, GeoCities boasted millions of active accounts, but it has since fallen out of fashion, with users migrating to social networking sites.

 

Yahoo says that existing GeoCities accounts will remain live for now, although it stresses that users should start looking for alternative sites.

 

Read more here

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I believe that is connected to this

With its three-year slump worsening, Yahoo said Tuesday that it will lay off nearly 700 workers. It's the first significant payroll purge since Yahoo hired Carol Bartz as its new chief executive in January, but marks the Sunnyvale-based company's third round of job cuts during the past 14 months.

Here's the story: tech.yahoo.com/news

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Geocities has been a graveyard for years. I remember hosting a site there back in the late 90's/early 2000's, they had the worst adverts of any of the free sites.

 

Indeed, their hosting plans were the worst: too little space and a load of irritating adverts, that use near 25% of the screen and, no ftp, no php/asp/CGI, no database options for free.

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I haven't got much bad to say about them - the adverts were fairly innocuous and nothing like as annoying as the fortunecity ones became. In fact I only recently moved my linux site from geocities a couple of months ago. Sure there was no ftp and no database but it was free.

I'm sure there's still a market for the free website customers, you just need to find a way to make money from the adverts which I guess Yahoo haven't been able to figure out. Or you need to find a way to upsell to the paid version. But people still want free websites, I'm sure. Not everyone wants facebook etc, right?

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Err, no it wasn't really as bad as Facebook. I have subscribed to the latter only fairly recently, to participate to a team some old folks have opened, and that only after I have found out how to completely WIPE my Facebook account (I mean wipeout totally, not just disable!) when I didn't want it anymore. Since I have found out how to wipe it (which is far from obvious), I simply went on opening one such account.

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facebook, myspace, twitter...I have accounts at these places, but half the time I wonder if the internet would better off without them.

 

+1

 

Though they are good if you're a buglar, stalker, marketing or a pervert :lol2: :lol2: :lol2:

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+1

 

Though they are good if you're a buglar, stalker, marketing or a pervert :lol2: :lol2: :lol2:

 

Rubbish, I completely disagree with you :closedeyes:

Social networks allow people who couldn't meet each other in normal circumstances to socialize, and that is a huge benefit of such networks. No one makes you to create an account, you don't like - don't go there.

 

-1

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Rubbish, I completely disagree with you :closedeyes:

Social networks allow people who couldn't meet each other in normal circumstances to socialize, and that is a huge benefit of such networks. No one makes you to create an account, you don't like - don't go there.

 

-1

 

Correct, but the very serious problem I see with facebook in particular is that they force everyone to join with their real name and surname.

(You can trick the software but noone will add you as their friend as you will be the only one not using your real name)

 

This fact is what makes facebook very Orwellian and that's why I would never join it.

 

Besides, there are enough other social sites where you can use aliases, even mandrivausers is an example of such a site (I know it's not the same as Facebook, but I actually prefer using specialized sites for specific purposes rather than one site where my whole life is exposed, and with my true name too)!

 

Myspace is just unsusable (and IMHO primarily a vanity site for teenagers and C-list wannabe pop-stars), most of the pages are so overloaded with flash and graphics and comments that they almost crash your browser upon loading.

 

I haven't even tried twitter, as I have never been a fan of instant messaging.

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Social networks allow people who couldn't meet each other in normal circumstances to socialize
Most social networks are good when they start and actually try to reach for this altruistic goal. But then they sell out and everything goes to hell in a hand basket.

 

Myspace -> OK when it started, still a teeny bopper thing -> bought out -> chuck full of adverts and annoying flashing crap.

Facebook -> Ok when it started, aimed at the college crowd, kept the teenies out ->still privately owned, opened to everyone, added the API, your 12 year old can now write a facebook app that makes me die inside.

Twitter -> we'll see.

 

Also, there are many situations when you would not want people socializing with those they would not normally meet. Take note of Myspace's problems with sex offenders.

Edited by tyme
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Also, there are many situations when you would not want people socializing with those they would not normally meet. Take note of Myspace's problems with sex offenders.

 

That is the point, to keep in touch with people you do not speak that frequently, yet you have/had something in common, like old buddies, colleagues etc. You can also share photos with people you consider your friends. Anonymity is a matter of user choice, people who have nothing to conceal pick Fasebook or similar, other can make other choices.

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