Geocities ist kaput. The once-popular service has been on life-support for years and the plug finally was pulled today. This termination officially marks the end of the dotcom bubble era, Geocities being arguably one of the greatest successes or failures, depending on whether you are the guys who sold it for $3.57 billion in stock in 1999 or those that bought it. Rupert Goodwins, ZDNet editor observed:

“I think GeoCities was the first proof that you could have something really popular and still not make any money on the internet.

Admittedly, it might not have failed so dismally had the original parents continued to raise it rather than the Yahoo foster parents. After being sold, step-child Geocities live in the dirt-floor basement with only a single lightbulb and old ketchup packets to eat while Yahoo sat its fat ass on the couch, ate bon-bons and watched its “stories”. It seems that every action Yahoo took with regards to Geocities was a disaster.

Aside from the web culture milestone, the only other notable effect is going to be the sudden disappearance of millions of links and the resulting adjustment to some web sites. How dramatic this will be is unknown, but some niche blogs and smaller sites might have traffic significantly affected.

Popularity: 7% [?]