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GeoCities is dead ... everybody knows
that.
You know the story ... we all do : On late 2009 Yahoo! Inc.
announced that the popular free hosting service Yahoo! GeoCities was closing
down. After October 26th 2009, all our GeoCities files were going be deleted as
the company decided not to provide free hosting services any more.
We don't know if the same happened to you but, when we
heard the news that Yahoo! was closing GeoCities down we were overwhelmed by a
sense of sadness and loss; it was like, by doing this, they were taking away a
big part of the History of the Internet with them, our history, your history.
Like many others, we felt like it was not enough for us to
back our sites up and run them somewhere else. Our sites were not just our
sites, they were part and they made us part of an idea, they made us part of a
community. We had to preserve as much of our community as we possible could, we
had to preserve GeoCities !
There are many internet archives out there. They are like
photo albums which show you the image of what it once was, but nothing more.
Preserving a community involves much more than just providing the public with a
set of snapshots of dead web pages, it means allowing the community to express,
to interact, to change, to evolve ... this is far beyond what a simple snapshot
can do.
So, days passed by and we kept on wondering whether it was
possible or not and how hard and expensive could it be. But if we were going to
do something, we had to act fast, or it would be too late for us to do anything
at all. So finally, one glorious night a decision was made and an action plan
was written ... on a bar napkin : we were going to take the challenge, we were
going to be part of the history of the Internet, we were going to save GeoCities
!
This site was born as a result of our desire to preserve as
much of our original community as we possibly could and to expand it beyond it's
original limits and barriers. To promote the community and it's grow, we will be
progressively providing you with as many tools, means, knowledge and support as
we possible can but we really cannot do this alone; you are part of this large
community now and as a member of such, you are responsible for it, for it's
health and growth. Develop your site, expand your limits, talk to others, get
involved, ask for help, a whole community is there for you, know that we count
on you.
So now that you know how it began, it is time for you to
tell us how it's going to continue, so tell us please ...
... is GeoCities really dead ?