GeoCities Closes Tomorrow

GeoCities, a long time free website hosting provder, is closing on October 26.

So, we’ve come to the end of the road. The service that hosted the first website for a generation is set to close down tomorrow.

If you’re a GeoCities user, you’ve been given plenty of warning, but you can still hop over there and get your data out today before current owner Yahoo turns out the lights. Meanwhile, the Archive Team’s Geocities Project is doing its best to archive as many GeoCities pages as possible, meaning that selected pieces of Internet history will be preserved (including hundreds of “Under Construction” gifs salvaged from the site).

Back in the proverbial day, GeoCities was the place where many a modern-day internet nerd cut his or her teeth. After a spectacular dot com purchase of $3.65 billion and an equally spectacular dot com bust, its closure marks the end of one of the earliest ages of the social web.

Yahoo, of course, has been busy slimming down and cutting costs under CEO Carol Bartz. With the company’s focus elsewhere, it makes sense to shut down what is essentially an internet relic. Still, to those who look back with nostalgia, October 26 could well be a wistful day.

Do you have fond memories of GeoCities? Let us know in the comments.