Howdy Fellow Commodore Users!

When I went to Geocities this month to update our club's website, I found a little bit of disturbing news. So disturbing, I thought I'd pass it along in this form, rather than just an announcement at this month's meeting.

We've had our webpage now for several years, it was back in 1998 when I first posted information about our club. Several changes have occurred over the years, some good, like a simplified way to get to our webpage, rather than the cumbersome and hard to remember version of our web address. Remember when it used to be http://www.oocities.org/siliconvalley/grid/6412 ? You can still use that method to get to our webpage, but I like the new address so much better. The statistics pages proved interesting to read to see what pages referred web viewers to our pages, most frequent seems to be Yahoo's own search engine. The acquisition of Geocities by Yahoo seemed tobe a positive merger between two well known web brands as each advertised each other quite frequently.

What is it that is happening now? Geocities is starting to charge for webpage services, which up to now has been free for most users. Geocities is not alone in this respect, as several other webpage communities are now charging for webpage services. Geocities is still offering their free webpages but at a reduced level of ease of use, and diminished tools that can make it easier to create the webpages.

Since the beginning, I've been creating webpages with my own tools, then via ftp, sending that information to be included into our webpage. With some creative creation, even ideas suggested by Geocities, ads could be minimized to a small unobtrusive advertisement banner. (which helped pay for these free services). Effective in April, we will no longer have access to ftp privileges, unless if we convert our webpage to a premium service with a fee based on the level of professionalism we desire.

Geocities has placed certain restrictions on free webpages in the past that we have been able to live with, such as a maximum level of data from our webpage that can be accessed within a set time frame. This hasn't been an issue due to my conservative creation of webpage content. Our webpage can be viewed by any browser, including shell accounts with lynx. Even those with slow modems can enjoy viewing our webpage. This can be painfully long for some webpages you can find on the internet today.

Geocities has offered various levels in the past. By handicapping the free service, they may get more money as people wish to preserve the services they have become accustomed to. They may also lose webpages by people who do not wish to pay for the additional services that are being offered. At a time when some internet services have switched from free to a pay service, is it a matter of time before free stuff can no longer be located? I hope to keep our webpage at Geocities, and I will keep you all informed if that could possibly change. Hopefully, I will not have to report that information at any time soon.

Keep on Commodoring!