GeoCities

"Build it and they will come," was in reality not popularized by Field of Dreams, nor did Blaise Pascal realize that men of vision would gamble to promote an idea, but Will Rogers was right about David Bohnett.

"The fellow that can only see a week ahead is always the popular fellow, for he is looking with the crowd. But the one that can see years ahead, he has a telescope but he can't make anybody believe that he has it." Will Rogers (1879-1935).

David Bohnett's "telescope" was the ability to see into a distant future, probably from a young age, and dare to venture where no one had gone before. Bohnett, who was born in Chicago and the youngest of three children was always interested in electronics as a child. At age 13 he operated a ham radio and corresponded with other ham operators around the world. Bohnett continued his education after graduating from USC and earned a MBA from the University of Michigan in 1980. His early work history included serving as a staff consultant in computer system automation with Arthur Anderson (international accounting firm) and serving as Chief Financial Officer for Essential Software in 1988, which later merged with Goal Systems. Before the Goal merger with Legent, he served as Director of Product Marketing at Goal Systems.

Have you ever thought about building a model community on a kitchen table with a "telescope and a small sun workstation?" Well, John Rezner and David Bohnett did in 1994. The name of their model community - GeoCities. After this modest start, GeoCities moved into a 1,200-square foot office in Beverly Hills.

John Rezner, a 1992 USC master's graduate in computer science and David Bohnett answered all of the e-mails, wrote all of the HTML, created web pages, and the application forms. Rezner did all of the scripts.

Beverly Hills Internet (BHI) served as the catalyst in those early years of development and refinement in 1995. This editor was excited like the other viewers who "tuned in" to the live WWW video feed from the famous intersection of Hollywood and Vine. Was enchanted with the possibility of "moving into" one of the early neighborhoods of Hollywood, Wall Street, Rodeo Drive, Collosseum, West Hollywood, and Sunset Strip. Even more exciting was the prospect of "doing our thing" due to the professionalism which lent credence to the self-publishing movement at a critical moment in Net history, when it looked like corporations were going to overrun the people's medium. We ordinary citizens would rise up against the tyranny of the Materialists and a ground swell of "revolution" was just beginning.

These initial "free" homesteads in model communities, each being comprised of people who share a common interest have put forth effort into participating and contributing to that community and have created personal web sites, most of the traffic of which comes from non-members. Those who visit are people from all continents who come to view and communicate with the content and the members themselves.

On December 6, 1995 BHI was officially changed to GeoCities. Communities continued to be added and all of the content in GeoCities was no longer created from "scratch" coding when web page publishing on line was added. From the initial 14 neighborhoods of topical interest, 10,000 members and GeoCities site was generating over 500,000 hits. Today, GeoCities hosts over 32 million pages of member generated content spread among 41 topical neighborhoods.

A successful IPO (Initial Public Offering) was launched in August, 1998. Investigation in the IPO filing indicated that the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has issued an order as a result of an investigation into how the company used personal information from its members.

Under the Proposed Consent Order, GeoCities was required to cease and desist from the allegedly deceptive practices in the future and to establish certain procedures to give adequate notice to consumers regarding GeoCities' information collection and disclosure practices, and to provide consumers with the ability to have GeoCities delete their personal identifying information from GeoCities' database.

Bohnett and staff responded with a proto type of privacy statement which serves as a model for the www community. The privacy of its members and their personal information is closely guarded and members can expect that to continue to be the case.

Not withstanding the "privacy" question in the IPO, arguably the most contentious issue was concerning the GeoCities watermark. We who had joined "the peoples medium" saw the intrusion of the water mark as a detraction from web site design and a violation of member rights. Arguments arose from the left and right as to the mutuality of GeoCities as a ISP and members who through their creative genius and community of interests were largely responsible for the "hits" which had propelled GeoCities into its present dominance on the WWW.

Being aware of issues, concerns and wants of its members and priding its self in listening to members falls upon fallow ground when e-mail or questions go unanswered. Now enters the Community Leader program, which though Co-Liaisons administer the themed neighborhoods, help new members establish their home sites, and answer a myriad of questions as unpaid volunteers. These volunteers have empathy with server malfunctions, online editors which fail, home sites which vanish, and the frustration of unanswered e-mail and questions posted on forums which go unanswered.

But the spirit of "community" prevails. The Foundation which David Bohnett built for we "the peopled mass" will prevail, for in a "community of citizens who share common interests" is a contradiction of mathematical law or rules.

"The sum total of the parts is greater than the whole!"

As we near conclusion of this section in our Foundation series, perhaps dear reader you will delight in a few David Bohnett answers to questions which are quoted from The News Magazine of the Internet Economy.

Who is the most powerful public person in the Internet industry today?
Uncle Sam
Who is your hero?
Alexander Graham Bell
What year did you start using the Internet?
1985

The following is taken from an article published by Noelle Knox, Associated Press

GeoCities, Inc. shareholders said yes to merging their company with Yahoo! Inc., while Yahoo! is already moving to prove to investors there are synergies in the deal. Yahoo! dismissed about 200 employees from GeoCities, or two-thirds of the company's staff, and moved the headquarters from Los Angeles to Yahoo's home base in Santa Clara, California.

Editors Comment

We are certain that the dedicated staff of Yahoo! and GeoCities will continue to offer excellence of services - However a business model for this acquisition is a classical case study as detailed below, may cause reflection among we who remain and those titans of finance who orchestrated the acquisition of GeoCities by Yahoo!

WordPerfect Corporation was founded in 1979. This privately held company developed software to help people process, share and present information across a wide variety of computer platforms (Dos, Unix, IBM, and others).

During the mid 1980's the computer and related software industries were in the process of change, the significance of which only the visionaries could fully comprehend.

Novel Corporation purchased WordPerfect Corporation in the mid 1990's. Despite the fact that Novel had an excellent suite of workflow products, even if they did not invent any of it, they barely understood what they got.

On Wednesday, January 31, 1996 Novell, announced that they were selling WordPerfect and the associated workflow products and other business software to Corel Corporation.

To those of us who had used the products which had been sold, this announcement was an answer to prayer. Even though WordPerfect market share had been seriously eroded and in our minds possibly beyond repair while under Novell's ownership, Corel Corporation's reputation for excellence was well known in graphics community. The question remained as to whether a relatively small corporation could "deliver the goods." To do so normally required large amounts of capital, marketing prowess on a world wide basis and superior technical personnel in the product areas. On the surface Corel Corporation could not "deliver the goods."

What transpired has become a classical case study in Marketing, Technology and Guts. Not only could Corel Corporation "deliver the goods", they took core components, combined with their technical prowess and delivered technically superior products. Users who had stuck by WordPerfect from its inception in 1979 were vindicated.

Will we who have stuck by Yahoo!Geocities (Y!G - my preference) be vindicated?

The answers my friends are written in the wind. The answers are written in the wind and may the "wind" shown below, lift your sail "Heartland." A fictional "tale" which will prove to be true should we lift our collective voices in support of our "Heartland."

There was Adnamar, Ev, and Aquaria, who in Caphie are called the Ulitar; who first made the Allure, the" Heartland", that were the offspring of their collective thoughts, and the Community Leaders were with them, propounding to them themes of cheers; and they cheered before them, and the Ulitar were glad. But for a long while they cheered only each alone, or but few together while the rest hearkened; for each comprehended only that part of the mind of the Ulitar from which they came, and in the understanding of their brethren they grew but slowly. Yet ever as they listened they came to deeper understanding, and increased in unison and harmony.

Return to Previous Page.

Copyright: 1986-2010