RIP Geocities

This evening, I received an email from AT&T informing me that Geocities was closing. Here's the opening excerpt:

"Dear AT&T Yahoo! GeoCities customer,

We're writing to let you know that AT&T Yahoo! GeoCities, our free web site building service and community, is closing on October 26, 2009.

On October 26, 2009, your GeoCities site will no longer appear on the Web, and you will no longer be able to access your GeoCities account and files."

Now, I had, once, long ago, a geocities website. It was the mid-90's and the internet was still an untamed frontier, taking shape and forming its manifold identities. It felt cutting-edge and incredible to be able to have one's own website back then.

I remember mine had some very basic animated pictures I found by browsing around, and I used a neon green text over a black background. At the time, it seemed cool, though the sight of websites like that now strains my eyes. Internet technology and graphics have come a long way since then, and the new cutting-edge frontier is cloud computing and mega-bandwidths. I no longer hear the screech of the dial-up modem as it raped the phone line for only a few ounces of speed, and while I'll never miss that sound, the memories of those early days are still fond ones.

So it really is like the end of the era. The internet's birthing pains are largely past us, and it has grown into full adulthood as more and more people around the world gain easier access to it. Websites like Angelfire and Geocities, though, will always have a soft place in my heart. Their names will conjure up memories of a time when the digital west remained untamed, and the horizon held so much mystery.

RIP Geocities.