Geocities - World city with heart

Here the world meets: In the biggest home page city on the globe poets and thinkers live next door to conservative politicians and wild creatives. A visitor's report. By Dirk Liedtke

Where is the inbox? Tim is annoyed. For hours, he has been trying to install his mailbox. It won't work. No mails arrive. Tim gives up and jumps over to the help chat. Anybody with ideas? Much chat but not much help in this corner. No experts today. Wait! Jan enters the Chatroom. Now they are working together for hours. Tim in Toronto, Jan in Warendorf near Münster. The mailbox is up. A typical neighborship help. At least in Geocities, the biggest web community of the world. Jan Wohlgemuth is one of 2 Mio. inhabitants that "live" here. Their "houses" are their homepages; like holiday homes in another world. Every day, 5000 hometeaders build a new free homepage. The chats are the market squares and pubs; there is no town council - here, the users rule according to the slogan "live and let live". Byte hooligans will be thrown out. You meet collectors of surprise eggs, as well as fans of Ford Mustang, or field hockey teams. Those who, in real life, are avoiding or even fighting each other, live here together peacefully under one roof. Christian priests and afroamerican moslems or gay scene and sober brass musicians. Welcome to the first World city on the WWW. A cozy idyll, on the first view:

Life in the City Everybody who has ever used a www search engine knows that aha-experience. What ever you are looking for, at least one result is a geocities website. No other place in the web is so popular. Surfers appreciate their detections and creators the generous space they have there for their creations. The story of the biggest online community started in 1995 with a simple but genious idea: David Bohnett, the architect and founder of geocities (see part "this is GeoCities"), created neighborhoods for the digital domiciles instead of just saving them without an order. This was the foundation for the virtual Mega city. In the Athens neighborhood you meet educationists, poets, thinkers; on Broadway is show biz and gossiping; in Pentagon uniforms wearers exercise, and film freaks gather in Hollywood. Nearby is also the quarter WestHollywood, a homepage dorado for gay, lesbian, bi- and transsexuals. Curious web tourists like to walk through this city, click through the neighborhoods, chat with their inhabitants, look into their living rooms - and are always welcome. Visitors preferring to discover the metropolis by a city map, can access it through a keyword search. Though the neighborhoods should be separated orderly, you still meet individualists that don't care about these building zones. Thus, a punk band is located close to a fashion model, late puberty Cyberkids live next door with square US suburbians. The citizens are a colorful conglomerate, reflecting all ways and aspects of life: whether it is the gay scene guide "Gay Berlin", the "Association of Friends and Supporters of the Clara-Schumann High School" in Bonn, the "En Altamar" retaurant in Pucon, Chile, or a German Tamagochi graveyard. David Bohnett attaches great importance to the programs and promotions in his city, to lively neighborhoods: "In GeoCities, members and visitors do communicate a lot. We have chat rooms, bulletin-boards and forums. Members with similar interests exchange their email addresses." An enthusiastic user is Helen Gold [former RainForest CL] from Israel, out the RainForest Neighborhood, a reservation for ecologically and politically concerned net citizens: "I can communicate with similar minded tolerant people in Germany, Indonesia, Malaysia, England or Australia. Religion or or skin color simply doesn't matter." In classic American tradition, the pages are usually not being censored. The community's content guidelines, however, racism, hatred, nudity and pornography. Searching for "FKK" [nudism], turns up only one signpost to a German sex-site. Briefly: a beautiful spot abundant with wonderful people. Really? Does community spirit work in GeoCities? Is it an agglomeration of cyber singles living back to back, just asking for help from time to time, or is there an international cummunity actually "living" in the neighborhoods? In dozens of chat rooms, high life is going on: mostly Americans, who can access the internet for a flat rate, chat and gossip, flirt and swear all day. Not even Sex is a taboo here. Users can join an existing chat or create their own topical chats here.

Poets and their friends in Geocities Jan from Warendorf Jan Wohlgemuth (23) lives in "Athens", the reservation for estethics, students and people hungry for education. In real life, Jan is at home in Warendorf and studies linguistics in Münster. We present some of his friends from Geocities here. Jan created his page in 1996: "At this time the thematic orientation was't yet enforced, you could have settled also by geographical location or preference. On his homepage, Jan reports for example about a humanitarian relief transport to Zagreb he accompanied. For his linguistics subject he made some extra pages. That's not enough: since June, I am Community Leader in Athens and I am happy that I receive so much feedback by other GeoCities members. By this work, I always get to know new people and cooperate with other CLs. Bullfrog This anonymous has a rather freaky but nice site with all his poems, psychedelic fortune cookies and other bizarreness. Like Jan, bullfrog belongs to the CLs. Angelika Angelika Mittelmann from Linz in Austria has diverse passions. She gets to know most people due to the recipes she offers. Her professional special field is "organized learning". More about Angelika on the next page. Ana The dreamy poet Ana Krahmer has exhibited her own works on her homepage. On her picture, she looks quite american. Anathia, as she calls herself on her poetry pages, is for Jan one of the most important contacts in GeoCities. "Ana was my mentor in CL training. We have regular e-mail contact." Let's see wether they'll meet one day in real. Princes Princes is not suffering from a weak orthography but has taken over her nick from IRC to GeoCities. A highlight of her page is a jokes mailing list. Subscribers receive a joke each day. Jan and princes, she is also CL, help each other in translating pages in other languages. Teresa The surfer is welcomed by a big virtual hug. Teresa Carrigan is a deeply religious [young] american, whose homepage has consequently the message that it is "Powered by the holy ghost". Beside instructions for prayers and Meditation in "Centre praying Style" she is offering a big insight in her family's photo album.

Streetparty at Billy& Co. Angelika from Linz The amusement zone in the webcity is her home: like in the Southern metropolis New Orleans with party mood and cajun sounds. Here, Angelika Mittelmann from Linz in Austria has her Cyber home. She is software developer for the business program SAP and is dedicated to "organised learning", a special subject of process management. Apart from that, Angelika has made a typical homepage with many recipes and her second big love "the emoticons". She is spending three to four hours a day to maintain her site and to answer e-mails. We introduce you some of her friends. Jan The Community Leader from the Athens neighborhood, likes the sensuous people in the hood. For a linguist like him, BourbonStreet is an interesting field with his cultural and language mixture, of english, french and creole dialects. Kathrine This lady belongs to the category of americans, who would tell you half of her life on a cocktail party. Kathrine does this on her private homepage. She lives in a suburb of Washington, D.C., has a husband, two cats and a career she is still working on. She finds time for different sports like shooting, fence and polo, though. Although she wants to reach a biblical age, she indulges in Single Malt Whiskey. Cheers! Billy For Billy B. everything is about music. The keyboarder from Myrtle Beach, SC, has packed his page with Midi Files and Band info. Wesley In Wes' Wonderful World, adequate to New Orleans, everything turns around Jazz. His motto: "Laisse le bon temp rouler." Wesley seems to be so much in love with his wife that he dedicated her a loving decorated galerie of glamour photos.

Neighborhood watch Things are doing more formally in the help chat, where citizens help each other with building homepages. Frank Plewka knows about the community spirit; he settled in the classical town Athens: "Geocities as the biggest web-community is of course the first address for homepages." The easy handling of software as building material is praised by Frank Förster: Uploading pages, changing and adding is rather easy, you don't need the boring ftp programs and additionally you can receive a free e-mail address. Therefore, besides a page in BourbonStreet for his cologne puppet theater, he has also moved in a page in WestHollywood together with his pal Manfred. Contact among citizens won't start without one's own initiative. Marcel Richter, student of ecology at the Vienna University and homesteader in RainForest recommends "thematic orientated webrings and registration with search engines." Somehow the visitors must find their way into the 2 million inhabitant city. According to Geocities CEO David Bohnett, one third of the traffic is coming from outside North America. But the US dominance is not to overlook: The community spirit is called for, but Geocities is formed in an american style, says Jan Wohlgemuth. Since a few weeks ago, Jan is one of more than 1200 CLs, a mixture between neighborhood watch, social worker and service staff. People like Jan advise newcomers: How do I have animated gifs? How can I implement photos? Such questions are patietly answered by e-mail, in Chat or in the beginners forum. "By this work, I constantly get to know new people, work with other CLs and made some friendships." If he does his job to the satisfaction of the neighbors in his quarter, he can be apponinted the "community leader of the month". The CLs can call upon other members and invite them to become a CL. Who feels fit for becoming CL, can apply with other CLs in his neighborhood and a "wise council" of CLs decides it in a secret ballot.

Each CL has a block assignment, that he scans for offenders, which he reports to the GeoCities officials. They reserve the right to delete these sites. Who doesn't stick to the tolerant consensus, must go. Those expatriated never know who has denounced him, to avoid revenge by mail or hack attacks. The cybercops are widely accepted. Critical debates sometimes flame over the growing commercialization in the global living community: The free sites are financed by advertising banners, in this boomtown a profitable business. Like every american highway, there is advertisements all over GeoCities. Many Users feel very annoyed by automatic advertisements: "What is extremely bugging is that since some time an additional window with Geocities ads pops up, each time you click a link", says Andreas Förster. If countless winning games, contests for newcomer bands, surveys or the new bestof area the "Landmark Sites" all follow the same purpose, to get as many hits as possible that transport an advertising message each time. Additionally nobody may sell anything on his private homepage; this is only possible in the GeoShops program for 24,95$ a month. David Bohnett doesn't understand the critics. "Some of the old communities regarded commerce as something bad. We see it completely different.

Guinny The 32 year old mother of two from Indiana has two major themes: She is fighting against cutting of RainForests and presents romantic Lyrics, both on the web. Joseph Bienvenido, Joseph is greeting his guests, who not all speak spanish. This we have found out: The proud Catalan is married and walks out with his golden retriever and calls his kids tenderly "Gremlins". Diana The sweet, 15 year old, student from Mercer Islands in US State Washington, strives to polish up the disastrous eco bilance of her countrymen. Who doesn't know how to dispose of hi six pack after usage, can receive recycling tips - praise- and lovable. Mika Who consciously treats his body and soul will find new impulses at Mika from South Carolina. If herbal tea or vegetarian nutrition or Zen Buddhism. The new age starts on this lovable built site. Close your eyes take a deep breath. Matthias Matthias from Berlin supports the protection of environment on his homepage in the virtual RainForest. By e-mail he has made friends with surfers all over the world. Exciting his travel impressions from South American countries. The 33 year old has founded an online Multimedia agency called docutech in Berlin. As a community leader in RainForest he takes care that the big building in GeoCities doesn't become a waste bin.

CapitolHill the local party organisation in Geocities Gebhard Kraft of CDU Hamburg-Langenhorn The basis of CDU has no fear of weird neighbors. In the middle of the wild web, in the political domain of GeoCities they have built their local party house. Gebhard Kraft, secretary and webmaster at CDU communal organisation Hamburg Langenhorn, is using regularily his computer and informs about initiatives and parliamentarians, CDU dates in the district and answering e-mails. roughly 10% of all his party members have internet access. And this, though Langenhorn is not the the upper class of the Hanse-city., "but normal workers and employees live here", according to Kraft.The party chairwoman Helga Röder surf with her sons PC. Only Sigrid Heinemann , the woman in charge for seniors is living offline. "Election by internet on local area is still the future", says Kraft: "When it is election times I still call everybody to take the brush out and wear rubberboots, then off it goes.

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