And so it goes: Geocities says goodbye to the world.

Those of us who were early adopters of the modern internet created by America Online and their obnoxious CD’s remember our first day.  We put the CD in the computer and got this really annoying “bong” sound.  We impatiently waited while the computer used our 14.4 baud external modem to dial up to the big Internet box in the sky.  We were mesmerized by a metallic disc and the sound of “deewoo deeewooo ant ant ant ant woooong….woooongggg…” and then heard this relatively pleasant person say “Welcome” with a pause “You’ve got Mail.”  Our excitement jumped to an all time high!  We read the welcome letter with much anticipation and when we reached the end that was it.  We were on our own and it was time to venture out to the World Wide Web.

Well eventually all of us at some point or another found out what GeoCities was.  Someplace between all the Beverly Hills 90210 fan pages and really inaccurate Family trees most of us made a home for ourselves at GeoCities.  We created our fan boy pages with animated under construction signs and rotating email links…and alas…we had a midi file of our favorite song playing on constant loop.

This day doesn’t just mark an end to GeoCities though, as much as it closes one more door in Yahoo’s failed bid in its quest for world domination over the internet.  They paid a whopping $3.57 billion dollars for GeoCities in 1999 near the peak of the dot-com bubble.  What is even more amusing is it was never profitable.  I guess it goes to show you that no matter how much money you throw at something, if you give it away you might never make a single dime – or an advertising only supported model does not generate enough revenue, though Facebook and Google seem to have figured that one out.

Regardless, much like CDs or the automatic transmission, the close of GeoCities ushers in the end of an era…

What a run huh?