Today, Oct. 26, is the day that Yahoo has said will be the final day of availability for its GeoCities hosting service and the hundreds of thousands - perhaps even millions - of free web sites it contains. There's been a burst of news and nostalgia around the shuttering of the site. Here's a roundup:
- There have been a number of efforts to preserve the GeoCities sites for posterity, including one by the Internet Archive and another by Archive Team, a separate group. Both efforts began this spring.
- Another effort was begin on Oct. 20 (yep, last Tuesday) by ReoCities, which has generated interest for its mad scramble to backup all of GeoCities in less than a week. Hmmm ... did they know the Archive was working on this?
- Gawker, with its usual snark, cites the evaporation of value represented by the closure, noting that Yahoo paid $3.5 billion for GeoCities in 1999.
- Netcraft notes that the impending closure will wipe out at least 930 known phishing sites, including 143 that were launched in the last month.
- News.com has invited readers to share their "favorite stories about GeoCities."
- Slashdot links to a number of tributes around the web, including ones at xkcd and Homestar Runner.
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