Yahoo pulls plug on GeoCities

Internet of the 1990's has had its day it seems

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23 April 2009 19:34 GMT / By Stuart Miles

It was the precursor to the blog, but it seems GeoCities, the service set up by Yahoo in the 1990s to allow consumers the chance have their say on the web is no more.

Yahoo has pulled the plug on the service by simply posting a statement on the website's homepage. Users visiting the GeoCities homepage are now greeted with a rather sad message:

"Sorry, new GeoCities accounts are no longer available".

It is believed that a steep drop in traffic over the last couple of months has forced the company, who is still experiencing difficulties following bodged merger talks with Microsoft in 2008, to close the community site.

"After careful consideration, we have decided to close GeoCities later this year. We'll share more details this summer. For now, please sign in or visit the help center for more information".

Yahoo has said that users of the free web-hosting service will still be able to access and use GeoCities, but Yahoo! is encouraging these customers to upgrade to Yahoo!’s paid Web Hosting service that it's pricing at just under $6 a month.