Ruud Hein on Geocities' Closure
"There are, I believe, two reasons why the Geocities model failed in popularity. And I say Geocities but I could also say Blogger or LiveJournal…
One, we don’t want to built web sites, easy page makers or not. Making new pages, figuring out where or how to add them to the navigation – not cool.
Two, audience. Family and friends we proudly told about our site came once. Then the incentive was gone and they didn’t come anymore."
Good insights on how the web evolves. Online communities to date have been a cyclical business. Consumers are fickle. GeoCities didn't make the turn and the same may happen one day to Twitter and Facebook. However, there's nothing right now on the horizon it seems. So it might be awhile before we see a new class emerge.
