GeoCities Closure Signals End of an Era - Will Others Survive on Freemium Model?
Yahoo has announced that its website creation service GeoCities, which it acquired for $4.5 billion in 1999, will close later this year. Existing customers are being encouraged to "upgrade" to Yahoo! Web Hosting, which offers a site-building service and a personalized web address. The closing of GeoCities is the end of an era. Last June, we profiled the rise of "GeoCities 2.0" services, i.e. website creation tools for the Social Web. Many of them will attempt to pick up GeoCities' customers. Although, as Yahoo! itself indicated in its closure message, website building is mostly a 'feature' nowadays rather than a separate product. So, is this a viable business now for the likes of Weebly and Yola?
Vinny Lingham, founder of Yola (formally SynthaSite), argues that the GeoCities closure proves that the advertising model for 'free websites' doesn't work. Lingham says that premium add-on services are the key to making money in this niche now and refers to it as a "freemium" business model. He makes a strong argument that the market has changed and GeoCities simply did not keep up:
"Web users, and particularly small businesses, don't just want an online presence (which was Geocities key value proposition), they want a professional-looking site that they can quickly and affordably build, and the tools to help themselves and/or their businesses succeed (online marketing, commerce capabilities, etc.) - and that's what we're about."
Example Yola website
However, the same argument can be turned back on his business and others like it such as Weebly (a Y Combinator company), Sampa (our coverage), SiteKreator and Webon (owned by another Web 1.0 survivor, Lycos). The online presence that people and small businesses want is increasingly being provided by both web hosting companies and large Internet behemoths like Yahoo! and Google. Google has Google Sites, which evolved out of one of Google's acquisitions, JotSpot, and is available for free both as a standalone product and as a part of Google Apps.
Not to mention, there are free blogging platforms such as Wordpress.com and Google's Blogger. Easy-to-use lifestreaming tools such as Tumblr and Soup.io are also filling many peoples website needs. Yet another type of 'free website' is a DIY social network like Ning.
However, as we noted in our round-up post last year, services such as Yola do target a specific type of user. They're aimed at people who just want a regular website, for example, people who want to chronicle their wedding or holiday, families who want to track their family history and growth, or retailers who want to build a web presence.
As the chart below shows, there's still a long way for Yola and Weebly, which appear to be the two frontrunners in this market, to catch up with GeoCities. But, it will be interesting to see how many new users they pick up now that GeoCities has dropped out.
Google Sites and the free websites provided by web hosting companies tend to be bland and not very customizable. Yola and the like are obviously hoping there is a big enough market for people to want a more professional looking and stylish web presence. So the 'add-on' premium service model probably does have legs. Weebly is also using the affiliate model, so it hasn't eschewed advertising completely.
As we noted a year ago, website builder platforms in the web 2.0 era, where mashups and open data are common, typically offer ways to integrate with 3rd party apps. This can take the form of widgets, or even utilizing other sites' APIs. This is probably the biggest difference between GeoCities 1.0 and the 2.0 era web publishing platforms. These platforms also usually offer the ability to add blogs, RSS feeds, multimedia, privacy controls, and more. For example, Webon supports the OpenSocial API "for thousands of add-ons and widgets (such as iGoogle gadgets and Google FriendConnect), with no HTML or CSS knowledge needed, as well as OpenID to enable DIY social network connections."
Another common feature in the new website creation tools is use of Ajax to build sites. They often have rich functionality and the ability to drag n' drop ajax widgets.
We think Yola, Weebly, and others have a good business model. Although, we also think it's a crowded niche market, even without GeoCities, and some of these startups will inevitably fall by the wayside. For most people, the basic service that Google Sites or web hosting companies provide will be 'good enough'. So, Weebly, Yola, and others are scrapping for the small percentage of users who want a premium quality website.
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What a sad day. I started my second account back in '99 but haven't used the storage in over 5 years.
Free services may work, I've only tried Ning of the ones suggested. But when you've got a site like GoDaddy selling all the bells and whistles and sometimes providing them for free... it's difficult to combat a juggernaut like that. The promo codes are readily available off the web knocking even more off the price.
If you know how to build a website... there's really no need for these places anymore.
Google Sites or a basic blog installation from a webhosting company might be 'good enough' for the average user but if you really want to personalise your experience on the web (and have a pretty website) you have to go with more customisable services like the ones you mentioned and a personal domain name.
There are many more excellent services like Tumblr, Posterous, Soup.io, Squarespace, etc. that are highly customisable and can be used with a custom domain. People want to use their favourite web apps and it's good to have a choice. We have just started to support some of these offerings on iWantMyName - a Wellington based company btw, Richard ;)
Does anyone know of any services like these but that allow you to host the self-service website tools yourself for your internal users to create simple websites?
Timo, great point re Tumblr et al. I added those to the post.
It's said to see it go, I made my first websites on GeoCities when I was still in Middle School. It actually made me learn HTML and become interested in creating webpages.
I just think with more interactive wysiwyg apps out there now, less and less kids will feel the need to learn actual HTML; and it was HTML that first got me into programing more then 10 years ago.
This really more is a referendum on Yahoo!'s failures.
Remember the times: it bought GeoCities an age ago when GeoCities had more than 1/8th of the entire web's traffic. That was a good bet to make in 1999 - buying 1/8th of the web with Yahoo's highly inflated stock at the time (it cost them nothing as % of market cap). Sounds a lot like buying Facebook today or Twitter next year.
But they did nothing with it.
Yahoo! has a long record of making strategic purchases but not taking them to the next level. GeoCities, Overture, Flickr ... they become trapped in time. They have to evolve as the web does, or they fade (Flickr) and eventually become relics (GeoCities).
There are many more excellent services like Tumblr, Posterous,,less and less kids will feel the need to learn actual HTML; and it was HTML that first got me into programing more then 10 years ago,I don't know this really reason...
he same argument can be turned back on his business and others like it such as Weebly (a Y Combinator company)..
it will come when google face the yahoo...
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It's a good decision to make.
Everything should be 2.0 or twitter nowadays.
Wow. I just made reference to one my old Geocities pages yesterday, and even linked to another page a few weeks ago.
Data rot or bit rot are growing concerns, do those terms apply here? This is more like surgical amputation.
Funny how things change
Just yesterday I setup a new web page on Yahoo web hosting because my old Geocities site was aging. If you want to compare an old 1997 style site to a brand new 2009 site on the same topic, click the link:
http://www.geocities.com/SiliconValley/Bay/6879/index.html
I think it is a continuing trend that Yahoo going downward. I was a loyal customer, I used Yahoo email for personal email, I used Yahoo IM, I used Yahoo for business web hosting. But now I use Gmail for my personal email, I move business to GMail as well. I even move business web hosting to Google App Engine. It is much more conveinient, faster and better. Best of all, it is free, at least within certain quota limit.
It will be missed as much as we miss the Netscape browser and AOL CDs arriving in our mailbox. Goodbye GeoCities, we had a good run eh? I put up a timeline above of how GeoCities looked every year and what the services offered were.
I built my first web site with geocities in 1998 and it is still there. I also expanded it across Lycos.uk (which went earlier this year locking a few domain names in the process)
I built my web presence and got to number 1 on the web search of my name way before web 2.
What concerns me is it that a lot is going to be lost, a lot of bookmarks, a lot of history.
I won't lose anything because I long ago decided I had enough of advertising and rehosted elsewhere paying for the privilege. What is on geocities now is mostly duplicates and pages frozen in time. I keep some of them because they are part of the web, bookmarked in so many places, even referred to in publications.
I'd be more than happy to move and PAY for the Yahoo! Web Hosting IF they leave all the cool and very useful features of Geocities PageBuilder!
I really enjoy the freedom that GeoCities offer with a plain canvas allowing to place the texts and pictures and any other html or flash content any where in the page that I desire!
GeoCities has been a great help in different stages for me: from creating my own page out of scratch with my own layouts and backgrounds allowing me to explore more my creativeness!
I don't like those other "website creators" with their very limited layouts and designs that aren't even attractive or modern looking and that don't allow you to create your page the way that you want it!
I need to download Geocities PageBuilder to my PC!
I just been testing those "Yola" and "Weebly" and they just want me use their own outdated layouts and designs that aren not even ready for a widescreen viewing!!
Cesar
On one hand, Yahoo! likely bought out Geocities to eliminate a competitor. That makes sense.
But Yahoo! could have done something better with Geocities.
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My Father has had websites on Geocities for years… and now he is totally bummed. I did some searching and found geocitiesrescue.com and then contacted them about what they were doing… they totally transfered my dads stuff over to a really affordable paid hosting service for him.
Just thought I would share the link.
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Yes, GeoCities seems to be of the old era. It may be used as a personal home page, but as a company's website, it is too non-professional. Now Wordpress and Blogger are more popular.