What would we do if our most frequented social networking site was closed down? This article, written by Phoebe Connelly (2009), raises that very important question. In an age where we don’t keep actual photo albums, rather preferring to upload our memories to online albums on various websites such as Facebook, what would we do if, suddenly, our access to those sites were gone? Deleting GeoCities could be likened to a fire; your house is on fire, you grab the photo albums; your web page or social networking site has been erased, you’ve lost everything!
I was saddened to hear of the demise of GeoCities, as I too had my own little web page that I created ‘back in the day’. Before the site was officially deleted, I did attempt to log in and find my page, but having been created so long ago (the late 90s) and being a teenager who changed email addresses as often as I changed underwear, I could no longer remember my login details.
This was really disheartening for me, even though I had forgotten it had existed, as I would have loved to have seen what late 90s Kristy-Lea was up to, to see how I’ve evolved, to see how naive and ridiculous I was back then. Even though GeoCities really had become a “gif-riddled online ghost town”; and boy did I love the animated gifs back then, it was OUR ghost town. It played an important part in shaping the internet, in the creation of early social communities before social networking sites such as MySpace and Facebook became the rage. It is a real disappointment that this piece of history has been lost.
(Speaking of which, I really ought to be saving copies of these blog posts on my hard drive and perhaps my USB just in case the unthinkable happens!?!)
References
Connelly, P. (2009). The life and death of online communities: How online communities are born - and what happens when they die. Retrieved January 21, 2011, from The American prospect: http://www.prospect.org/cs/articles?article=neo_cities
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