R.I.P. Geocities

Maybe you’ve already heard by now that, But Yahoo is shutting down Geocities. Yes, the same Geocities it paid $3 billion dollars for a mere 10 years ago for.

Yahoo has shut down the Geocities website. Geocities was a free website service and online community. It was one of the hottest properties on the internet during the late 90s. Yahoo overpaid for the service in 1999, paying a whopping $4.9 BILLION for it in a stock deal.

CNET calls Geocities a "relic of Web's early days." PC World says "So Long, GeoCities: We Forgot You Still Existed."

The Geocities website now contains the following message.

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 also posted a faq about the closing. "Yahoo will be closing Geocities accounts by the end of the year". The faq states, "Later this year we will be closing all GeoCities accounts and web sites. We'll send you more details this summer."

It remains to be seen whether the failure of Geocities is a lesson for today's ultra hot web communities like MySpace and Facebook.

The first thing I thought about when I heard this news was MySpace.

Before you laugh out loud, I’m not talking MySpace the darling amongst teens and music artists today, I’m talking about MySpace 10 years from now. Take a ride in your time machine to the year 2019 because it wouldn’t surprise me in the least if by then MySpace has met the same grim fate. A lot of MySpace pages are nothing more than Geocities type over-busy pages with sound. The major difference is MySpace is more ‘social’ whatever that means.

There will be something cooler than MySpace within the next 10 years and the inevitable shut down will follow. That’s not to say MySpace is a complete waste of time today so don’t think I’m trolling here but I think the sobering news about Geocities being here today gone tomorrow within 10 years – a lifetime on the internet, BTW – should be a wake-up call for MySpace users.

What do you think, am I wrong? Will MySpace have more longevity than Geocities? If you need another example of a waning giant, look at eBay vs. Craigslist. It’s tough staying relevant, popular and cool online. For that matter, what about Facebook? it's not really all that hot as it was back just a few years ago is it? (I still don't get what the big deal is) or for that matter, Twitter, whats THAT all about? will we be reading about these in the cyber obituaries a decade from now? remembering back to what life was like when these "giants" were around?

Thoughts?

YouTube blocks music videos in Britain

YouTube is blocking thousands of music videos to British users after failing to reach a new licensing agreement with the Performing Rights Society (PRS), which collects royalties for songwriters.

The move on Monday has angered the PRS, which says YouTube — bought by Google in 2006 — is "punishing British consumers and the songwriters whose interests we protect and represent."

Steve Porter, head of the PRS, said he is "outraged" and "shocked" by the move.

His group released a statement condemning YouTube's tactics:

"Google has told us they are taking this step because they wish to pay significantly less than at present to the writers of the music on which their service relies, despite the massive increase in YouTube viewing. This action has been taken without any consultation with PRS … and in the middle of negotiations between the two parties."

Patrick Walker, the director of video partnerships at YouTube, said the action was "regrettable" but added the PRS is seeking much higher fees, which were "prohibitive."

YouTube pays a licence to the PRS, which allows the site to stream music videos from three major music labels and several independent ones.

"We feel so far apart that we have to remove content while we negotiate with the PRS," Walker said on BBC News.

He said the rates that the PRS was seeking would result in YouTube losing "significant amounts of money on every stream of video."

YouTube is the world's most popular video sharing website.

The dispute between YouTube and the Performing Rights Society for Music that prompted the website to remove music videos could spread to MySpace UK and other music sites, industry sources said.

MySpace UK and other sites are struggling to renegotiate their own licences with PRS, which pays royalties to artists.

One source close to the negotiations said that the launch of MySpace UK's comprehensive music service later this year could be thrown into jeopardy unless it secured an economically viable licence with PRS.

"A lot of service providers are negotiating and renewing licences with PRS right now, but the rates are widely known to be uneconomical," said the source. "Nobody could run an online business on those terms."

The streaming service Pandora was forced to cut off its service for UK users on 15 January after it failed to renegotiate its licence with PRS. Imeem, which reportedly received $15m in funding from Warner Music last year, and RealNetworks are also understood to be renegotiating.

Meanwhile, YouTube and PRS are due to meet in London this afternoon and both say they are determined to resolve the deadlock.

PRS is understood to be basing its royalty claims on the results of the 2007 UK Copyright Tribunal, but the source said the rates PRS were demanding were so high that a free-to-view, advertising-based service would not be able to charge advertisers enough to cover the royalty payment on each video.

YouTube, which started to remove videos last night, repeated its claim that the rates are not sustainable except for sites that charge subscription access.

"However, we want to share the revenue generated from music videos on YouTube with the music industry," said a spokesman. "But at the rate set by the Copyright Tribunal - which is the rate PRS is seeking - YouTube would be losing money with each stream.

"It's simply unsustainable for our business."

A PRS spokeswoman said the ultimate aim of the talks were to come to an agreement, while YouTube said withdrawing videos from UK users was "not a breakdown in talks, but something that had to happen for talks to continue".

MySpace kicks out 90,000 sex offenders

MySpace.com has identified and removed 90,000 convicted sex offenders from its popular online social-networking site, according to one of the dozens of state attorneys general who pressured the site to beef up its safety standards.

Richard Blumenthal, the attorney general of Connecticut who spearheaded the campaign to subpoena MySpace, said he found the number "appalling."

"These convicted, registered sex offenders clearly create profiles seeking to prey on children," he said, adding, "This revelation is totally appalling and unacceptable, and this shocking revelation, resulting from our subpoena, also provides compelling proof that social networking sites remain ripe with sexual predators."

In May 2007, MySpace announced that it would provide the coalition of state attorneys general with information on sex offenders who use the site.

"We have zero tolerance for sexual predators on MySpace," Hemanshu Nigam, chief security officer for the site, said at the time, as he introduced a tool known as Sentinel SAFE to track online sex offenders.

MySpace had initially refused to comply with the subpoena, citing federal privacy laws.

Teens on MySpace talking sex, violence

A new study finds that 54 percent of teens talk about behaviors such as sex, alcohol use, and violence on the social networking giant MySpace -- presenting potential risks even if all they're doing is talking, researchers said Monday.
The study looked at MySpace profiles of 500 people who identified themselves as 18-year-old males and females in the United States.

References to risky behaviors included both words and photos, the authors said.

Not all teens who write about risky behaviors in their profiles actually engage in them in real life, says Dr. Megan Moreno of the University of Wisconsin School of Medicine and Public Health, one of the authors of the study, which appears in the January issue of Archives of Pediatrics & Adolescent Medicine.

They may instead talk about sex, substance use, or violence because they are contemplating doing those things, or because they want to brag without actually doing what they say, Moreno said.

Even if teens have not actually engaged in risky behaviors but merely brag about them online, this can still affect their future behavior, said study co-author Dr. Dimitri Christakis, professor of pediatrics at the University of Washington and director of the Center for Child Health, Behavior and Development at Seattle Children's Hospital.

"Those who lie about the behaviors to show off may receive positive feedback from others -- comments such as "that's great" or "I do the same thing" -- that encourage them to actually try out the behaviors," he said.

"Apart from that, teens who claim such behaviors are more likely to be victims of bullying and unwanted invitations for sex," he said.

In a second study, Moreno and colleagues identified 190 profiles of 18- to 20-year-olds that contained three or more references to sexual behaviors or substance abuse. The authors then made a profile of their own, called "Dr. Meg," from which they sent a single e-mail to half these profiles, warning them about the risky information and offering information about clinical resources.

They found that, after three months, 42.1 percent of the profile owners who received the e-mail -- and 29.5 percent of those who did not -- either removed references to risky behaviors or made their profiles private.

"It's really not that MySpace is bad or good. I think the lesson is that it's a tool, and how you use it determines the kinds of outcome you're going to get," Moreno said.

Experts say the bottom line is that parents should get more involved in the online lives of their children.

"I tell parents that they should absolutely create their own MySpace and Facebook page," Christakis said. The study inspired him to create his own Facebook account, and his 10-year-old already wants to know about his "friends," he said.

"In some cases, parents should even have their children's passwords for these social networking sites, especially when the children are around age 13 or 14," said Vivian Friedman, child-adolescent psychologist at the University of Alabama at Birmingham.

Friedman was not involved with the study, but she is well aware of the problem. One of Friedman's patients, the daughter of a preacher, posted nude photographs of herself online, a move that cost her father his job, Friedman said.

But she said 54 percent as a figure for profiles with risky behaviors seems too high, given that most of what happens on social networking sites is "chit-chat."

"I have parents that catch their kids bragging about something on MySpace, and when you actually confront them, the kid says 'I really wasn't doing it,' and they can prove they were not at the party where they were supposed to have been drinking," she said.

Beyond keeping a watchful eye on risky interests and pictures, parents should also use social networking sites such as MySpace -- which had about 120 million users as of this summer -- as an opportunity to learn about their childrens' favorite movies and hobbies, as well as their top friends, she said.

"You so often hear parents say 'I don't even know my kid anymore.' Here's a very easy tool to get to know your kid again," she said.