When I was a high school student, I created a virtual study group on line at this place to build free web sites called “Geocities.” It was a novelty then – as I coded html pages to share study notes (and the answer to the homework) – and my web design was crude and disgusting – the kind of things that were rampant then but universally mocked now. Little did I know then that I so much of my life would be digitized. Geocities existed before terms like “digital native,” “social media expert,” “web 2.0″ and even “blogging” were around. Geocities was just a simple service for the common person (who could program html) could build a web page for themselves.
My Geocities site progressed over time. And while I used other services, Geocities was always the ubiquitous site for personal websites. I would journal back then – editing the entire html page – long before there were things like Wordpress, Blogger, and even Livejournal. As my knowledge grew, I moved away from Geocities. New technologies made things easier. And, over 10 years later, I finally see that Geocities has died – closed down by Yahoo! in a cost cutting maneuver that was probably long over-due. Still, I can’t help but want to pour out a bit of the proverbial liquor for a lost friend. The site where I took my first baby steps in what is turning out to be a career on the internet. Geocities is where this digital native was born – right with IRC rooms, newsgroups, and the various other primordial web interactions that I was involved with. So, with that, I say goodbye to Geocities. If you’re someone that used the service, I would love to hear your stories in the comments below. I wish I still had screenshots of my old Geocities sites. I would probably puke in my mouth looking at them, but it would be very nostalgic.
