About the Blog

As I’ve mentioned throughout this site, I’m very passionate about what I do. It is a driving force in my life, and is highly fulfilling. As a result, I tend to talk about it. At length. To everyone I know. I suspect that this blog will be no exception.

Hopefully, my quirky interests and odd sense of humor won’t confuse/infuriate you. If they do, well, I won’t be offended if you decide to read the musings of someone more interesting than little ol’ me.

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Blogging/Writing, NaBloPoMo, Philosophy,

The end of an era: Geocities closed down

10.27.09, 06:29pm | Nostalgia, The Internet,

Yesterday, Yahoo! finally took down Geocities, a popular free website hosting/building service that’s been around since the mid ‘90s. Twitter was awash with comments on the passing of thisinternet legend, and although I normally frown on nostalgia surrounding technology (heck, technology is all about change, I couldn’t help but feel a bit sentimental myself.

Like most of the things that happened during high school, I remember Geocities with a guilty sort of fondness. Just about all of my friends had a Geocities page, ranging in topic from RPG fantasy characters to bizarre sci-fi stories. I myself had a ridiculous page dedicated to the study of humans, from the point of view of an alien captain. My way of making myself feel special, probably.

Geocities had three flavors of website builders: basic, intermediate, and advanced . After messing around with the basic version for quite awhile, and decided to try my hand at intermediate. I have to say, it was a pretty crummy editor, and after a couple of days of trying (unsuccessfully) to bring my brilliant design to life, I threw up my hands and said “screw this! I’ll do it all from scratch!”

These were the early seeds of my career as a website designer. Touching, isn’t it? *cough cough*

Although the financial worth of Geocities is debatable, it was one of the first places that offered each user their own unique corner of theinternet, and that alone gives it tremendous value. Geocities allowed users to create their own personal identity, asking little more than room for a few animated ad banners. And it was the training ground for many current website design professionals.

So, while a part of me is thrilled that my old “H-Files” website will never again see the light of a computer monitor, I’m also a little sad to see it go. Not only was it the early spark of things to come (MySpace, social networking websites, etc), but it opened the Internet up to many generations to voice their thoughts and opinions, and was an important milestone in the history of the web.

I leave you with this lovely Geocities tribute by XKCD creator Randall Munroe, who styled his webcomic in a fashion befitting Geocities (blue links, thick borders, blinking text, and an animated background image) for yesterday’s duration.

R.I.P., Geocities. We will never forget you.