It would be understandable if few people under 30 ever heard of GeoCities, which Yahoo closed this spring as part of its widespread restructuring under tough-as-nails CEO Carol Bartz.
But in its day--albeit a decade or so ago--GeoCities was the Facebook of its time, or at least aspiring to be. Which is why Yahoo, however unwittingly, paid about $3 billion for it in stock at pre-inflation 1999 dollars.
Although it was originally billed as one of the many city guides that once populated the web (remember Microsoft's Sidewalk?), it was also popular for allowing "Homesteaders" to create their own home pages. Consider it the lungfish equivalent of a social network.
So why are we taking this trip down memory lane? Because it serves as something of a harbinger for those who treat today's social networks as established media entities.
When MySpace exploded into the public consciousness, it was portrayed by the mainstream media as the social network to end all social networks. Just as Friendster was a few years earlier, though to a lesser degree, and The Globe before that, and AOL before that. I'm sure we're missing a ton more, but you get the idea.
Now, of course, we have Facebook, where seemingly every advertising, marketing, and PR agency is trying to establish a presence in ways large and small. That's fine, but for those late-comers with a penchant for stuffing their eggs in a single basket, we have just two words: Remember Bebo?
That's what we thought.
Call us crazy, but it seems a tad risky to count on the enduring nature of a venture founded on the fickle whims of teenagers.