Yahoo Decides to Shutter GeoCities, Other Services

Yahoo is engaging in its own version of urban renewal, shutting down pioneering Web hosting service GeoCities along with other under-performing services.

Back in the late-90’s dot-com boom, hosting provider GeoCities was to the Web what sites like FaceBook and MySpace are today: a simple, easy-to-use site where folks could create and publish their own Web pages, complete with templates, backgrounds, annoying blinking text, and the same animated GIF mailbox highlighting an email address. Yahoo bought GeoCities in 1999 for almost $3 billion; now, Yahoo has announced it is closing the venerable hosting service in a bid to cost costs and improve its bottom line.

GeoCities has almost stopped accepting new accounts; new users coming to the site are instead directed to Yahoo’s $6/month Web site hosting service. Existing GeoCities users can still access their accounts, but Yahoo is warning users it will close the GeoCities service later this year, and all accounts and sites later this year. The company plans to release detailed information for GeoCities users this summer.

The move is just the latest bit of fat-trimming at Yahoo as new CEO Carol Bartz looks to refocus the company and reinvigorate its finances, although the cuts began under former CEO Jerry Yang. The company has also shuttered Yahoo Briefcase, Yahoo Live, KickStart, Yahoo for Teachers, My Web, and FareChase services; Yahoo also recently turned LaunchCast radio over to CBS.

Yahoo has also announced is is cutting 700 more positions, the company’s third round of job cuts in the past 14 months.