They’re Internet History
April 24, 2009 on 3:09 am | In Business, Insider View, Musings, Promotions, Rants, Tech News by Josh Jones | 95 Comments
Well, that’s it. Yahoo! is finally shutting down GeoCities.
This is a sad moment for the Internet in general, and it’s especially sad for us. I’ve always felt a sort of special connection with GeoCities.. lemme ’splain you.
GeoCities was one of the first web hosts on the Internet, being started as “Beverly Hills Internet” in 1994. About four months before we started New Dream Network, in December of 1995, they became “GeoCities” and started offering FREE hosting.
By the time I had heard of them, we were already offering some PAID hosting, and I remember thinking something along the lines of “Damn it! They’re cheating!”
How could a bunch of (completely) broke college kids afford to compete with somebody just giving away hosting? At the time, I figured it could never last.
I was right.
15 years and $3.57 BILLION later.
But that’s not the only reason GeoCities has a special place in our heart.
The main reason is WebRing!
WebRing was a free service for people with related sites to automatically trade links, written by co-founder Sage (it’s not just me and Dallas around here!) back in 1994, while he was still in high school!
A couple of years later when he ended up at our college and we conned him into our play-company, we helped him run WebRing on our server(s).
WebRing itself never officially became a part of New Dream Network, since Sage had started it on his own years before. What we got out of it was Sage wrote DreamBook for NDN and put links to it all over WebRing!
In 1997, WebRing was starting to grow too big for us full-time college students to handle, especially with our newest little project taking off.
So, Sage got Starseed, Inc. to take it over for him. A friend of his from high school worked there and they made a deal where Sage got a percentage of Starseed, an annual “consulting” stipend, and certain creative controls, and they took over everything to do with WebRing.
It didn’t take long for Charley, the head of Starseed, to figure out that the best chance to make the most money off of WebRing was to sell it and sell it fast!
Greetings Geocities
And, sell it he did… to GeoCities!
I believe originally the offer they were going to accept was around $1 million.
However, irrational exuberance was on Charley’s side, and the timing couldn’t have been better for everything that happened next.
At the last minute, another bidder came to the table.. GeoCities however, decided they simply must have WebRing, and closed the deal at around $3.5 million!
Of course, this was all for GCTY stock options, and I’m sure they (rightly) figured that it wasn’t real money anyway.
Now the Starseed team (plus Sage) just had to wait and see which came first, the vesting of their options or the popping of the bubble…
The Vesting
Well, while everybody was nervously holding onto their approximately 1% ownership of GCTY, a funny thing happened. In January 1999, Yahoo! bought GeoCities for $3.57 billion, putting GCTY at more than ten times what it was when they did their deal!
And so, Sage’s options in GCTY were now converted over to YHOO. He still had another year before he could cash them all in though. And things were already a teeeeeensy bit over-valued.
Luckily, by the time Sage was able to cash out (and he did) in early 2000, Yahoo! had tripled yet again… meaning that Yahoo! had effectively purchased little old WebRing for about $100,000,000!
The Downfall
So, Yahoo set a team onto merging WebRing into their system.
By 2001 they were done, and everybody hated it.
Users were dropping faster than YHOO stock, and in 2002 an engineer from GeoCities bought WebRing back from Yahoo for an undisclosed sum (rumored to be around $10,000!)
Since then, I don’t really have any inside information on what’s gone on with WebRing. Just from the Internet Archive history, it looks like he more or less kept the Yahoo look and ran it “respectably” until around 2005:
… when they started to really pimp it out for ads!
Then in 2007.. Social Networking!
And today… Web 2.0!
Reminiscing
WebRing’s been around just about as long as the Web, and now that I ponder it, has been a sort of microcosm of the Web the whole time.
It went from a tiny ad-free community service, to hyper-growth, to showing ads, to being acquired for an INSANE price, to being forsaken, to doing anything to survive, to “social networking”, to “web 2.0″, to today!
Back in 1998, who would have thought WebRing would outlast GeoCities? Who would have thought DreamHost would outlast GeoCities?
DreamHost acquires Geocities
Well, not really. The thought sort of crossed my mind, “If they sold WebRing to that one guy, maybe they’d sell GeoCities to us!”
But then I realized.. Yahoo understands the only real value in GeoCities left is those millions of potential upgrades to PAID hosting.
If you go to GeoCities right now, Yahoo! has a big ad for their ($12/month) hosting.. with the first three months half off!
Whoop dee do.
“In honor of WebRing” or something, we are now offering to the first 1000 GeoCities users who sign up TWO YEARS of a completely free DreamHost account (including domain registration)!
No strings attached.
All you have to do is verify you are an existing GeoCities customer by creating a page on your GeoCities account (or editing an existing page) to have the phrase “I’m off to DreamHost!” on it!
Then when you signup for us, simply put the full url to that page as your “promotional code” and you’ll get a 2 year plan (normally $214.80) free!
And we promise to never shut down.
95 Responses to “They’re Internet History”
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April 24th, 2009 at 3:32 am
Ah, fond memories of my animated-gif-laden corner in TimesSquare/Arcade…
April 24th, 2009 at 3:40 am
Dear Lord, I remember my old GeoCities page. Back when getting “address” in TimesSquare or Area51.
*hoists glass* *drinks* *throws it into the fireplace*
April 24th, 2009 at 4:57 am
Geocities was not my first website, but it was in the first 3. The former Trailer Park of the Internet, until MySpace got even trashier.
April 24th, 2009 at 4:57 am
A hundred million #$*(@@ dollars for WebRing?
Damn. Where the hell did I go wrong?
April 24th, 2009 at 5:06 am
A great trip down memory lane!
April 24th, 2009 at 5:10 am
So does anyone have a GeoCities link for me to use? =P
April 24th, 2009 at 6:20 am
how to? I have chosen two years for $214.80 and what else?
“Promo code error: To get two years free, you must pick the two year plan!”
April 24th, 2009 at 6:27 am
The trailer park of the internet? I think it was more like the Skid Row of the internet, filled with rambling crazies.
As a long-time customer of Dreamhost whose account is paid up through the end of next year, I’m now singing the line from Alanis Morrisette… “It’s a free ride when you’ve already paid.” Not really ironic, but still.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:35 am
Hi Josh. I had a geocities page once, but I think it died about 7 years ago :(
Can I have 7 years free hosting to make up for not being able to make use of this thing?
Thanks
xx
April 24th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Christian (and others),
Even though the two-year plan is not currently working, it seems the one-year plan works.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:40 am
# TomWoz Says:
April 24th, 2009 at 8:29 am
Christian (and others),
Even though the two-year plan is not currently working, it seems the one-year plan works.
Ye you are right. But why? They repented of that?
April 24th, 2009 at 8:43 am
It’s an error on their part.
I think they simply edited the “second option” listed in their form instead of editing the form’s “two year” option.
I selected the one-year plan with unique ip which the promo code pays for (up to $214.80).
April 24th, 2009 at 9:01 am
Damn! I tried to test between two plan several times, and now I can’t use my url even though I didn’t really registe with it.
“Promo code error: This Geocities Refugee has already signed up with DreamHost!”
April 24th, 2009 at 9:15 am
Christian,
Try modifying or creating a new html document on your geocities account.
So instead of:
http://www.geocities.com/christian/foo.html
try something a little different:
http://www.geocities.com/%63hristian/bar.html
If they key off of your userid in the url, then the new url might not get you past the “Refugee already signed up” issue.
But if you properly encode the first character of your user id so it looks different, it could be worth a shot. ;)
April 24th, 2009 at 9:31 am
I think I gave up on my Geocities site around 1998. This is a cool thing you’re doing though, if only there was a way to keep all of the sites up in some sort of archive form though, I’m sure there’s a lot of good stuff still hidden within the dregs
April 24th, 2009 at 9:34 am
Christian,
Try modifying or creating a new html document on your geocities account.
So instead of: geocities.com / christian / foo.html
try something a little different: geocities.com / %63hristian / bar.html
If they key off of your userid in the url, then the new url might not get you past the “Refugee already signed up” issue.
But if you properly encode the first character of your user id so it looks different, it could be worth a shot. ;)
(fyi, this is a dup – previous post had http links still awaiting moderation)
April 24th, 2009 at 9:35 am
I second (third/fourth?) the selecting-the-two-year-plan-does-not-work experience. Does this mean that the we only have a free 1-year hosting instead of the two-year, as advertised?
April 24th, 2009 at 9:50 am
@TomWoz
Buddy you are cool! I got it.
So there’s only one regret, it’s not 2-year. Hoping the DH team will do what they promised (well I prefer 2-year more than private IP).
April 24th, 2009 at 11:28 am
Whoopsee, it’s two years now, sorry about that, just a bug! And we’ll go back and make all the people who already signed up for one year two years too!
josh!
April 24th, 2009 at 12:28 pm
Suck, I killed off my geocities account a little less then a year ago. The Yahoo control panel thing has me listed as still owning an account on geocities, but wont allow me to get into their file manager thingy. I guess no awesome web hosting for me. :(
April 24th, 2009 at 1:25 pm
@Josh
That’s a really good news!
April 24th, 2009 at 4:13 pm
Nice, I still remember those old webring pages. :)
April 24th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Josh, not only are you an expert at Perl but you’re a damn good business man. This is just an awesome marketing move on DH. I tip my hat to your marketing team.
April 24th, 2009 at 8:47 pm
I get a “Promo code error: We couldn’t find the string “I’m off to DreamHost!” at that URL to verify your ownership!” when I put in this url:
http://www.geocities.com/whiteblackbutterfly/dreamhost.html
April 24th, 2009 at 9:04 pm
@Ali, I got that error too. It seems that the curly apostrophe in “I’m” should be the plain apostrophe.
April 25th, 2009 at 10:42 am
Hi, i have a Geocities account, but it isnt “www.geocities.com”, its:
“http://ar.geocities.com” as its Argentina Geocities, i think the offer will work too, wright?
April 25th, 2009 at 11:57 am
Aren’t you guys tired of feeding off dead companies carcasses? Whenever someone goes bust you vultures try to make a buck from it… Can’t you attract your own customers by being good?
April 26th, 2009 at 7:11 am
I’m thinking about what will happen to affiliate links? what if some of those 1000 geocities account sign up under my affiliate but ended up having a 2 year free hosting promo. would I still have a commission in the future if they continued their hosting?
April 26th, 2009 at 4:52 pm
Thanks for the blast from the past! I’m old friends with Charley and it’s nice to be reminded of how he and Sage made it big. Memories of accessing the internet over a 14400 baud modem also come to mind…
April 26th, 2009 at 4:59 pm
Good thing Johnny showed up. We almost made it to 30 retard-free comments.
They’re one of the biggest hosts in the world. Do you think all of those hundreds of thousands of customers are from dead competitors?
If they weren’t already good, wouldn’t they be one of the carcasses you think they’re feeding off of?
Who cares, anyway? There’s not a business in the world that doesn’t want to end up with customers from other businesses.
April 27th, 2009 at 5:26 am
I love you.
My Geocities accounts have been up since 1995. Became a little worried this morning.
DreamHost saved my day. And all my links and stuff from the last 14 years…
April 27th, 2009 at 1:44 pm
i just signed up :D still waiting for the e-mail confirmation though :)
April 27th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
Very interesting story. And very lucky the guys from geocities that find your promotion. I am in the opposite way, off from dreamhost. 2years happy, 8 days offline.
April 27th, 2009 at 10:37 pm
Same here. Just waiting for the approval and confirmation email. way to go dreamhost.
April 28th, 2009 at 2:26 am
NIce work. I will go with it now
April 28th, 2009 at 10:56 am
What about your existing customers that might also have used Geocities?
April 28th, 2009 at 10:57 am
“And we promise to never shut down.”
OMG YOU JINXED IT!
April 28th, 2009 at 11:37 am
the “I’m” needs to be a straight apostrophe, not the curly one (that you get if you copy and paste). THANKS DREAMHOST!
April 28th, 2009 at 12:16 pm
has anyone gotten the confirmation email yet?
April 28th, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Too bad I can’t sign into Geocities right now. It’s in an infinite redirection loop after entering my password… Hopefully I can change a page before this promotion ends.
April 28th, 2009 at 12:39 pm
Ah. Figured it out. IF you get the infinite redirection loop, simply go to http://geocities.yahoo.com/filemanager to access the file manager after you’ve entered your username/password.
April 28th, 2009 at 4:20 pm
That was cool – thanks DH. Now I’ll mirror all my old crap from Geocities to Dreamhost and continue to not update the page for another two years.
April 28th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
Does this work for existing customers? I can’t find if it says either way.
April 28th, 2009 at 6:25 pm
Signed up 48 hours ago and contacted support, but still waiting. Bye bye GeoCities, welcome Dreamhost??????????
April 28th, 2009 at 7:52 pm
I’m still waiting for my account to be approved.
April 28th, 2009 at 9:09 pm
Geocities won’t let me edit anything, how lame. Is there any way I can get into this deal without changing my Geocities? I think I can find proof that I’m a Geocities user.
April 28th, 2009 at 9:19 pm
Worked like a charm for me. Thanks a lot!
April 28th, 2009 at 9:41 pm
Wow, you guys are amazing!! Worked like a charm; thanks so much!!
I was a little sad to hear about GeoCities going the way of the dodo, since it was where some of my first websites were hosted circa 1996 or so. Lots of nostalgia for me. This definitely softens the blow, though. I’m glad that some good can come of the whole thing! ;)
April 28th, 2009 at 9:46 pm
Going to http://geocities.yahoo.com/filemanager (after login) does not avoid infinite redirection loop, seems like we have to wait until yahoo allows us to get in to backup or do anything on to our sites hosted there. At least for free accounts.
April 28th, 2009 at 10:33 pm
My application got approved! Thanks dreamhost! you rock! really! :)
April 28th, 2009 at 11:01 pm
Wow, Didn’t know geocities account i created long time back would give me such a reward, DreamHost rocks
April 28th, 2009 at 11:46 pm
Sorry, new GeoCities accounts are no longer available.
April 29th, 2009 at 2:44 am
It worked for me !!
April 29th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
Hi ….
i want to sign up but always get error …
Promo code error: We couldn’t find the string “I’m off to DreamHost!” at that URL to verify your ownership!
my url
http://geocities.com/ndutsipit/index.html
i’ve include that phrase…please help me
regards
April 29th, 2009 at 8:30 pm
Geocities was my first website, i like it
April 29th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
It kinda seems funny but it has been 3 days and my account is still pending and needs approval, while other friends that I know of got approve soon as they clicked that signup button…
I already contacted and opened a support ticket, but there is still no response up until now though.. hmmm, anyone also experienced this?
April 29th, 2009 at 11:09 pm
ghprod,
try making it as simple as possible without the quotes…
April 30th, 2009 at 5:58 am
@Jamez, same boat as you buddy.
I’m still waiting for the approval also.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:18 am
my first website is geocities. I have learned from that. so what happen with my geocities, now? uhuhh….I am sad
April 30th, 2009 at 6:52 am
@ghprod: Change the apostrophe in the “I’m” from:
I’m off to DreamHost! -> I’m off to DreamHost!
@Jamez, @tomtacks: I’m still waiting for approval as well.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:55 am
* Sorry for the double post but WordPress keeps changing the apostrophes.
@ghprod: Just type it yourself instead of copying and pasting.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:58 am
Same here, still waiting for approval. Is there a possibility some of us won’t get approved? Isn’t this promo a first-1000-signups only? I signed up way ahead from my friend, but got approved first.
April 30th, 2009 at 9:32 am
I’m still waiting for approval as well.
April 30th, 2009 at 2:04 pm
Me too still waiting, have got no reply yet.
April 30th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
i smell something fishy.
it’s been 3 days waiting for the approval. opening a support ticket also didn’t help.
and the worst part, the free domain i entered during sign up is still available.
@Jamez, @tomtacks, @steven and others.. could you please tell me if your domainname(in case u opted for the free domain) got registered properly??
if i loose that domain somehow i’m never gonna forgive them.
April 30th, 2009 at 6:48 pm
The system does work. and the domain i registered works perfectly.
but one of my friends tied to get the aproval and he’s still waiting.
Have the 1000 avalaible accounts finished?
April 30th, 2009 at 9:03 pm
well. it finished.
would you like to give it again ?
April 30th, 2009 at 9:35 pm
how long does it take for the account to be approved? I’m thankful to Dreamhost but I heard some people get it approved instantly and I’m still waiting. Hope to find the answer soon
April 30th, 2009 at 9:52 pm
Just now got the message all 1000 geocities free offers have been taken. bummer… I missed it. Great deal for those who got it.
May 1st, 2009 at 12:01 am
omg, i miss it :(
May 1st, 2009 at 3:21 am
i signed up almost 3 days ago and never got any confirmation :(
May 1st, 2009 at 3:48 am
All the people who have not got any approval confirmation.
can you please confirm if you have got your domain registered or the domain is still available (check domain availability somewher)?
May 1st, 2009 at 4:38 am
Oh…. I lost my access to the geocities but I had one. This is once in a lifetime offer. I wish I could make it.
May 1st, 2009 at 5:19 am
i already signed up yesterday, and already completed the registration .. (im 1 of 1000) BUT
i got this in my panel.dreamhost.com
” PLEASE NOTE
This account is currently pending approval.
If you’ve already made payment your account should be activated within one business day.”
though its more than a day since the registration, i still can’t do anythin :(
May 1st, 2009 at 7:21 am
“”umesh Says:
April 30th, 2009 at 3:52 pm
i smell something fishy.
it’s been 3 days waiting for the approval. opening a support ticket also didn’t help.
and the worst part, the free domain i entered during sign up is still available.
@Jamez, @tomtacks, @steven and others.. could you please tell me if your domainname(in case u opted for the free domain) got registered properly??
if i loose that domain somehow i’m never gonna forgive them.”"
————————————————————
Yes umesh!! the domain i registerd with Dreamhost is still available too, i checked it like two hours back!!!
May 1st, 2009 at 8:54 am
I already got mine approved after 3 days! yay! All I did was to contact support, but this time I DID NOT contact support from the inside, but instead from the outside. And less than a few hours I got a reply and then I got my pending account approved!
I guess that you better try it too. I used this > http://www.dreamhost.com/contact.cgi instead of the technical support form. I contacted them with it as a problem regarding sales and explained about my issue.
I suggest those people who are still pending to give it a try
May 1st, 2009 at 1:19 pm
@Jamez: Thanks, that did the trick!
May 1st, 2009 at 7:05 pm
@jamez, thanks, ill try :D
May 2nd, 2009 at 10:16 am
Great Offer! I have a Ballroom Dance blog on geocities. I will try my luck if I can get 2 years free hosting.
May 2nd, 2009 at 11:34 am
yahoooooo :D!!! i have just received confirmation email!!! :D
Fanx yahoo for closing Geocities :D n Fanx Dreamhost for giving such a great offer!!! ((-:
May 3rd, 2009 at 1:04 pm
Wow, dreamhost you are the sh!z.net… Still made it in time to grab the offer… Much props…
May 3rd, 2009 at 6:17 pm
Jamez, I’m going to try that right now. Hopefully it works, thanks!
May 3rd, 2009 at 10:42 pm
Wow, this post made me grow alot of respect for dreamhost. I remember those ugly yet classic geocitie pages, funny how the web change so much so fast.
Anyway, might decide to grab a dreamhost vps now cause of this cool offer though I missed it
May 4th, 2009 at 5:53 am
sure… am gonna try this one…
DH u’re awesome
May 4th, 2009 at 7:45 am
oh no… just read all the comments, seems i missed this.. :(
May 4th, 2009 at 11:57 pm
Wow… what a history.. !
Still remembered the old fashionate..
DH, you’re the man!
May 5th, 2009 at 9:54 pm
Dear Dream host Customer Support,
I send Contact Support 1 hour 13 mins Very Slowly To Support
Plese Check Ticket Id #3091947
Thank in Advance
May 6th, 2009 at 11:23 pm
I would just like to thank you for this kind offer. Having gotten one of the 1000 free slots, I intend to show my appreciation in three ways
a) NOT copying my 1998 era GeoCities page over. Nobody wants to see that.
b) Using the service. Which is pretty amazing and quite possibly overkill for me.
c) Possibly giving you money in exchange for other services down the line. Maybe. ;-)
May 7th, 2009 at 3:39 am
Too bad, I deleted my Geocities account a few years ago. :-(
May 8th, 2009 at 4:25 am
Oh crap! It’s already full. 1000 geocities refugees.
hmm.. how about angelfire next?
May 8th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
That’s just downright depressing. My very first website was a pokemon one on Geocites a good decade or more ago. This is really depressing. =(
May 9th, 2009 at 12:57 am
Sh!t. All accounts gone. There are surely lot more than 1000 GeoCities users. 1000 is nothing. May be DreamHost should open another 1000, no??
Waiting for a deal. :(
May 11th, 2009 at 1:09 am
This is a fantastic deal and I’m sad that I missed it. Let us know if you want another 1000!
May 12th, 2009 at 6:41 am
I remember the old WebRing. It actually worked, and was helpful to ringmasters. Have run a ring since ‘98, and every time they change owners they screw up the way WebRing works a little more.
June 8th, 2009 at 5:13 pm
I went searching for a free web host and I actually found when it comes to free you usually get what you (don’t) pay for. With that in mind I then found great hosting at a very competitive rate. The best part is they offer compensation, this way I don’t have to come out of pocket for the products that I need. I actually come out on top every month which in my opinion is 10x better than free.