Regular readers of this column will know the writer has a
soft spot for Yahoo!.
The first free email address was one from Yahoo and it still
works 12 years on, although the format of mail.yahoo has
changed slightly.
Yahoo has really improved its mail service and now, even if
you register as a New Zealand resident, you can have a .com
address but still pick up New Zealand news feeds.
But that is digressing.
Back in 1999, at the very peak of the dot.com boom, Yahoo
bought GeoCities for $NZ5.2 billion - a not unsubstantial
figure even then.
GeoCities once boasted millions of users and was the third
most popular destination on the web as people got their first
taste of building and owning a web page.
Sorry to say readers but the switch to social networks has
caused the demise of GeoCities, which closed on Labour Day.
However, many of the pages have been archived and will still
be available to view through the non-profit Internet Archive
project.
This writer's first humble attempts of writing in a computer
language were on GeoCities following the purchase of a book
which, although not a dummies guide, was a practical lesson
in HTML.
An online statement from the Internet Archive said it had
collected a lot of GeoCities sites over the years but did not
have every site and every page.
I earnestly hope my GeoCities site has disappeared, although
I did have more hair and less weight rather when compared
with the current situation.
The Internet Archive was busy asking for GeoCities users to
check whether their site had been archived before Yahoo
stopped service.
"GeoCities has been an important outlet for personal
expression for the web for almost 15 years," it said.
GeoCities started life in 1995 as Beverley Hills Internet, a
small web-hosting firm.
The company allowed users to host their web pages in themed
cities.
For example, "Wall Street" hosted business-related sites
while "Silicon Valley" was used to host computer and
technology sites.
Users, known as homesteaders, could build and host their own
sites in those online spaces.
In April this year, Yahoo said it was closing the site and
would now focus on helping "customers build new relationships
online" - whatever that means.
When Yahoo announced the end of the site, Rupert Goodwins,
editor of the ZDNet website, said it was the end of an era.
"I think GeoCities was the first proof that you could have
something really popular and still not make any money on the
internet.
"It was a fascinating experiment in the pre-industrial era of
the internet," he said.
Separately, Yahoo and Microsoft have extended the deadline to
seal an agreement on their internet search and advertising
partnership.
In a filing with the Securities and Exchange Commission
(SEC), Yahoo said the two companies had mutually agreed to
continue their negotiations beyond the original date set to
reach a definitive agreement.
Yahoo and Microsoft had originally planned to complete their
agreement by October 27, but in the SEC filing, Yahoo said:
"Given the complex nature of the transaction, there remain
some details to be finalised".
"The parties are working diligently on finalising the
agreements, have made good progress to date, and have agreed
to execute the agreements as expeditiously as possible,"
Yahoo said.
The 10-year web search and advertising partnership unveiled
in July sets the stage for a joint Yahoo-Microsoft offensive
against internet titan Google, the dominant leader in the
lucrative search and advertising market.
Under the no-cash deal, Yahoo will use Microsoft's new Bing
search engine on its own sites, while Yahoo will provide the
exclusive global sales force for premium search advertisers.
The agreement between the internet portal and software giant,
which will be subject to review by US anti-trust regulators,
is expected to close in early 2010.
