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Geocities Deceased

December 4th 2009 07:26
Back in the earlier days of the Internet I joined up with geocities.com, and had a website there - along with thousands of others. For some time it was the only website I had, and anything I put on the Net tended to go there via ftp and other such now fairly outmoded devices.

Somehow I missed the fact that Yahoo (who took over geocities quite some time ago) had decided to close down geocities. I'd seen the fact that they were getting rid of the briefcase, (if that's what it was called), a place where you could store files as a backup, but while no doubt they told me they what they were doing with the websites, I missed it.

The consequence is that I can no longer access that geocities site - (that link will go nowhere, but I'm including it for old times' sake). Apparently there was an attempt to rescue the various sites on geocities, and some of them have been saved...but not, as far as I can tell at the moment, mine. (See the Reocities list - my Athens 4657 is notably not there. My near neighbours: 4655, and 4656 got in, but....boo hoo....not me!)

Here's what Wikipedia says about rescue attempts:

In response to the closure, rival webhosting services began to compete for the web sites leaving GeoCities. For instance, German web host Jimdo started the "Lifeboat for GeoCities" service to encourage GeoCities users to put their websites on Jimdo. Geocities-closing.com, started by GeoCities competitor uCoz, is a similar project launched to save GeoCities websites.

With the GeoCities closing 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. The website InternetArchaeology.org also archived and is showcasing artifacts from GeoCities. The operators of the website ReoCities downloaded as much of the content hosted on GeoCities as they could before it shut down and intend to create a mirror of GeoCities, albeit an incomplete one.

It's no doubt possible to reconstruct my old website, if I was of a mind...and I guess with the holidays coming up, it's a task I could fit in. It just seems odd to think that something that's part of the history of the Net has been so brutally disposed of. Next time I set up a website I might have to get an insurance quote for it first, in case some other Internet giant comes along and decides to dispose of it...

Talking of starting up another website, I've just had another look at Jimdo....and signed up. I'll keep you informed of progress.

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