GeoCities' time has expired, Yahoo closing the site today

We always imagined how this might end: GeoCities would finally take down all of the animated "under construction" signs, and we'd hear one last Midi file to the tune of horns playing taps.

Instead, GeoCities will probably go down with a whimper today.

Time is up for Yahoo Inc.'s scheduled closing of perhaps the most significant virtual museum in recent history. Years ago a central meeting place for a massive chunk of American Web surfers, GeoCities will lock its doors and take millions of pages offline.

GeoCities allowed anyone to build a custom Web page for free and reserved a small amount of virtual storage to keep pictures and documents. It was perhaps the first mainstream example of an open, participatory and personal Internet.

At the turn of the century, GeoCities was nearly ubiquitous. Fathers created websites about their families; kids created sites about Pokemon; teenage girls created sites about the Backstreet Boys. Practically every facet of culture was documented and thanks to search engines, easily accessible.

All of those documents are about to disappear.

GeoCities stopped accepting new registrations earlier this year. Existing users could continue to update their pages and save sites to a personal hard drive in advance of the impending closure. Yahoo is encouraging the relatively few remaining users to transition their accounts to the company's $5-per-month Web hosting service.

The decision to shut down GeoCities rather than keep it around for historical reference and, say, slap ads all over it is curious. Especially when you consider that the network is still among the top 200 most-trafficked sites on the Internet, according to metrics tracker Alexa.

"Yahoo continuously evaluates and prioritizes our products and services in alignment with business goals and our continued commitment to deliver the best consumer and advertiser experiences," according to a company spokeswoman. GeoCities' closing is "part of our ongoing effort to prioritize our portfolio of products and services in order to deliver the best products to consumers."

The company downsized in a different way on Friday when billionaire financer Carl Icahn announced he was resigning as a director.

Yahoo boasts that it has closed nearly 20 services in less than a year, which includes a sort of competitor to GeoCities called Yahoo 360 as well as My Web, which was similar to Delicious, another Yahoo property.

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OK feel free to copy/pasta this everywhere. It makes a good statement without going over the top like whats been happening all over the web. This was originally posted by GrantD at the IW forums.

Thanks.

The open letter follows:

Dear Infinity Ward and Activision,

The recent response to the general outcry against the new system is less than satisfactory for the community for several reasons. The response does not address any of the communities grievances, it does not show any regard for our concerns, and it insults us and tries to discredit the consumer, as if we are the ones who are wrong.

There have been several well thought out petitions going around which suggest that the lack of dedicated servers will have a harmful impact on the community as a whole. The main points are the lack of user created content (mods and map variants) the lack of community and clan viability, and the degraded playing conditions afforded by non-dedicated servers.

The lack of user created content is thought to be greed on the part of IW, as it would force the players to buy and play maps created by IW, when the PC community already does this for free. There are also tactical mods which change gameplay which several communities use for increased realism which will be impossible under the new system. There is no remedy to this whatsoever offered by IW's response,they continue to champion the system with no regard for what they are taking from the PC community.

Next, they offer no remedy for the clans and international communities. The groups who pay extra every month to enjoy the game and who give people like me a place to play on their public servers, all of us get the shaft. Why? so we can join a game with less performance, with fewer people, and we get to wait while it finds that game. They are destroying the communities that develop by these servers as well, I have never been in a clan but I play the same 2-3 servers because I know the people on them and I have gotten up to their skill level. They play the maps I like, they have the rules I like, and if I didn't like them there's 10000 other servers I could try until I found the ones that DID appeal to me. The other great utility I had in finding these servers was the internet, and since I am already on a computer I could search for the servers that hosted games that I wanted to be a part of. It gave me what I actually wanted instead of what matchmaking thinks I want.

Infinity Ward also completely sidesteps the lower performance of non-dedicated servers. This means the host of the game will determine the quality of the game. I don't know about you but I do not have a 25mb down 15mb up connection with an uninterruptable power supply placed at an internet hub. We will be looking at games with far fewer people, with far more lag, and with the chance of the host quitting, and then we have to go find another game with the same problems so on and so on. This is the stuff we avoid consoles because of and they are passing it off as a great new thing? I think not.

OK, that was the list of grievances now here come the possible fixes.

First, the reason for this list is that we are PC players, we want the system to stay the way it's been or we would be on a console. Why would you try to change what we love about our platform? I like PC games because of the community content, the communities that develop and friendships that follow, and the consistent, high performance gameplay. YOU ARE TAKING AWAY THE THREE ELEMENTS THAT MAKE PC GAMING GREAT!!

Yes there will be easier access for those of us who just play once every 2 weeks for an hour, but what about those of us who play every other day for 2-3 hours on the same server with the same friends? You are taking away what we like about the game.

If you want you can do a half and half approach, put out a patch day one that adds an extra menu option for reaching a dedicated server, people can also go do the matchmaking if they can't find the server they like yet but if they are part of a clan they will be able to play with their friends on their dedicated server. As for user created content, why not? Afraid we are going to not buy your expansion map pack? We probably will even though we have our own custom maps.

Finally, and I hope this really gets through, do not insult us. We are your consumers, we are the ones in line day 1 to get the game and we are the ones still playing 2 to 3 years after release. Chances are if you look at the "masses" complaining about not finding a good game to play they are just lazy and wont put in the time before they just pop in the next game. The ones complaining would probably also be the pirates since the fans are the ones BUYING and PRE-ORDERING your game. The community is the group with the pocket book, and you laugh at us, in fact they call us nerds, say "We're just prioritizing the player experience above the modders and the tuners," and then "West and Zampella hammer the point that hardcore PC players lose very little to this change relative to the returns that casual to moderate fans will see." I think this essay has shown what we are losing, compare that to not finding a good game the first time you click a random server, then tell us we are losing very little.

Please, you can still fix this,

Sincerely,
Concerned Community Members Everywhere

Dear Mr. Bowling,

My name is PPN Steve (PPNSteve online/game name). There has been great turmoil in the CoD PC community because of your recent announcement that there will be no dedicated server support. I'm not sure if you are aware of the implications of this. It will effectively destroy the competitive community and mod makers. It will also cripple game server providers who rely heavily on the Call of Duty series to drive sales.

I guess what we don't understand is how you can tell Shacknews that, "PC will be the same as it always was" and then drop this bomb on us three weeks before launch. We understand that Infinity Ward is a company and is driven by sales but you need to understand that we are your customers and should not simply be ignored. I call on Infinity Ward to engage in constructive dialogue with the Call of Duty PC community to solve this problem and remind us once again why we have been supporting your games and your company over the past six years.

Thank you,

on behalf of the Call of Duty PC community,

PPN Steve

Les Paul, whose innovations with the electric guitar and studio technology made him one of the most important figures in recorded music, has died, according to a statement from his publicists. Paul was 94.

Paul died in White Plains, New York, from complications of severe pneumonia, according to the statement.

Les Paul (born Lester William Polsfuss on June 9, 1915) was an American jazz guitarist and inventor.

Paul was a guitar and electronics mastermind whose creations -- such as multitrack recording, tape delay and the solid-body guitar that bears his name, the Gibson Les Paul -- helped give rise to modern popular music, including rock 'n' roll. No slouch on the guitar himself, he continued playing at clubs into his 90s despite being hampered by arthritis. Les Paul, whose innovations helped give rise to modern pop music, played guitar into his 90s.

"If you only have two fingers [to work with], you have to think, how will you play that chord?" he told CNN.com in a 2002 phone interview. "So you think of how to replace that chord with several notes, and it gives the illusion of sounding like a chord." iReport.com: Do you play a Les Paul guitar?

Guitarists mourned the loss Thursday.

"Les Paul was truly a 'one of a kind.' We owe many of his inventions that made the rock 'n roll sound of today to him, and he was the founding father of modern music," B.B. King said in a statement. "This is a huge loss to the music community and the world. I am honored to have known him."

Joe Satriani said in a statement: "Les Paul set a standard for musicianship and innovation that remains unsurpassed. He was the original guitar hero and the kindest of souls. Last October I joined him onstage at the Iridium club in [New York], and he was still shredding. He was and still is an inspiration to us all."

Slash said, "Les Paul was a shining example of how full one's life can be; he was so vibrant and full of positive energy."

Lester William Polfuss was born in Waukesha, Wisconsin, on June 9, 1915. Even as a child he showed an aptitude for tinkering, taking apart electric appliances to see what made them tick.

"The world has lost a truly innovative and exceptional human being today. I cannot imagine life without Les Paul," said Henry Juszkiewicz, chairman and CEO of Gibson Guitar, in a statement. "He would walk into a room and put a smile on anyone's face. His musical charm was extraordinary and his techniques unmatched anywhere in the world."

Pop star Michael Jackson was pronounced dead by doctors this afternoon after arriving at a hospital in a deep coma, city and law enforcement sources told The Times. [Updated at 3:15 p.m.]

Jackson is in a coma and his family is arriving at his bedside, a law enforcement source told The Times. [Updated at 2:46 p.m.]

Jackson was rushed to Ronald Reagan UCLA Medical Center this afternoon by Los Angeles Fire Department paramedics.

Fire Capt. Steve Ruda said paramedics responded to a call at Jackson's home at 12:26 p.m. He was not breathing when they arrived. The paramedics performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation and took him to the hospital, Ruda told The LA Times.

[Updated at 2:12 p.m.]
Paramedics were called to a home in the 100 block of Carolwood Drive off Sunset Boulevard. Jackson had rented the Bel-Air home for $100,000 a month. It was described as a French chateau estate built in 2002 with seven bedrooms, 13 bathrooms, 12 fireplaces and a theater.

The home is about 2 1/2 miles, about a six-minute drive, from UCLA Medical Center. An earlier version of this post incorrectly described the time to travel between the home and hospital as two minutes.

The news comes as Jackson, 50, was attempting a comeback after years of tabloid headlines, most notably his trial and acquittal on child molestation charges.

In May, The LA Times reported that Jackson had rented the Bel-Air residence and was rehearsing for a series of 50 sold-out shows in London's O2 Arena. Jackson had won the backing of two billionaires to get the so-called "King of Pop" back on stage.

His backers envision the shows at AEG's O2 as an audition for a career rebirth that could ultimately encompass a three-year world tour, a new album, movies, a Graceland-like museum, musical revues in Las Vegas and Macau, and even a "Thriller" casino. Such a rebound could wipe out Jackson's massive debt.

via LA Times — Andrew Blankstein and Phil Willon