Farewell Geocities

Do memories die? Well, it certainly is going to feel like it soon. Yahoo! is shutting down Geocities effective today (October 26 in the USA). That was where I learnt HTML to create my first homepage on my spinal injury. That was in the late 1990s. I had wanted to share my experience with the world. I created a few pages but it was a chore having to write all the codes manually.

When Wuan and I began dating, I created another website at Geocities dedicated to her. It was called Poems for Wuan. The website had a flash animation on the welcoming page. Valentine in MIDI format played in the background. Altogether, I put up eighteen poems that I wrote for her there.

In the initial years when I got online, Geocities and a few other free webhosts were the BIG thing in cyberspace. Blogs have taken over that role now. The only vestige to remind me of my days in Geocities after its demise is the Yahoo! email that I am using now. A .geo suffix was appended to my Geocities ID after Yahoo! took over and the email accounts were merged.

After I got my own domain name and hosting to start blogging, I replaced the main page at Geocities with a link to my new domain although I still maintained all the original files of the website there. The spinal injury website is now at sci.petertan.com. It has been in neglect since I started The Digital Awakening. I also got Wuan her own domain name and hosting. Poems for Wuan has been taken offline and replaced with Wuan’s photoblog.

I have moved on in my cyber journey that Geocities first ignited. It had been a fortuitous one. I have made many friends along the way, learnt many valuable lessons and gotten many opportunities that I never thought possible. Farewell Geocities. Thank you for the memories.

Author: Peter Tan

Peter Gabriel Tan. Penangite residing in the Klang Valley. Blissfully married to Wuan. A LaSallian through and through. Slave to three cats. Wheelchair user since 1984. End-stage renal disease since 2017. Principal Facilitator at Peter Tan Training specialising in Disability Equality Training. Former columnist of Breaking Barriers with The Borneo Post. This blog chronicles my life, thoughts and opinions. Connect with me on Twitter and Facebook.

2 thoughts on “Farewell Geocities”

  1. Hahah.. I did the same to during my courting days – built a site for me and my wife (then gf) and i have taken it down too. The files will be kept for as long as it comes. I’d like to thank Geocities for the memories too.. *sniff*

    Peter:
    That was so cool huh – creating a website as a symbol of love. We were so romantic then; hopefully still are. Hehe.

  2. So sweet! Created a website dedicated for Wuan. 🙂

    Peter:
    One of those things I did for love… 😀

Comments are closed.