Geocities Spreads Its Wings

Wired, Is This One Nation, Under Blog?:

A recent Newsweek article claimed that a half-million blogs populate the Net. But weblog software companies and industry experts say many new journals are authored by the same people who've abandoned older ones, just as AOL users stop using screen names they've outgrown.

Sounds like Geocities, especially in tune with Ghost Sites. A few years back, it was pretty easy to stumble across a Geocities site that hadn't been updated in years (it still is). This is just a natural progression as normal people get more familiar with how the 'net works. Geocities originally helped people out of the "how do I get a domain name" by making it easy enough not to want one, and ever since NetSol lost its monopoly, many domain name registrars are offering the same sort of simplicity with combined registration / hosting services. Just like your URL in Geocities was based off your content (movie sites under /Hollywood/, for instance), customized domain names are being used as an expression of self (as the Wired article correctly posits), as delicately and emotionally fickle as your favorite movie, actress, etc.