Geocities Migration March 1, 2002 7:48 AM Subscribe
Now that Geocites has cut off FTP to its free users, we're likely to see a mass migration of Geo-based bloggers to other free FTP-capable hosts. (more inside)
Geocities is basically killing it's customer base. It's good for people starting out, but they are not so-subtly suggesting that once you get the hang of things and have a proper site, you must pay for additional services. Most people would rather to move another free host, or if they are paying they would go to a host that offers far more for the same price Geocities is charging for it's Pro accounts.
posted by riffola at 7:54 AM on March 1, 2002
posted by riffola at 7:54 AM on March 1, 2002
A couple of decent looking free hosts: Irth Networks, netfirms.com.
posted by riffola at 8:03 AM on March 1, 2002
posted by riffola at 8:03 AM on March 1, 2002
Maybe ev could they create some sort of way to combine blogspot and that javascript thingy so that it still served the ads, but they could run it on geocities, or whatever. (and yes, I have no idea what I am talking about)
posted by eckeric at 11:08 AM on March 1, 2002
posted by eckeric at 11:08 AM on March 1, 2002
I don't think Geocitites/Yahoo is interested in free hosting anymore (who would? how do you support a business doing it?), and I bet they are willfully killing their userbase.
Imagine their hosting service only having the most interested and invested (even monetarily). If someone's got a blog on geocities and they have much of a readership, they probably exceed their daily limits already, might as well just pay for use. I would guess that most geocities users aren't familiar with ftp anyway, and it's more of a pro-level feature. I bet yahoo doesn't see this as a problem, as I bet running geocities bleeds money like crazy.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:15 PM on March 1, 2002
Imagine their hosting service only having the most interested and invested (even monetarily). If someone's got a blog on geocities and they have much of a readership, they probably exceed their daily limits already, might as well just pay for use. I would guess that most geocities users aren't familiar with ftp anyway, and it's more of a pro-level feature. I bet yahoo doesn't see this as a problem, as I bet running geocities bleeds money like crazy.
posted by mathowie (staff) at 12:15 PM on March 1, 2002
I'm slayed ... I've posted the following to my weblog, but I think I need all the help I can get, so I'm posting it here as well ...
"Help! Plea to anyone within reading distance. You may have heard that Geocities are withdrawing free ftp access, which means if I can't get something sorted out within a month, no more 'feeling listless'. I can't sign up to the one of the premium services because they aren't being offered outside the US. This is all a symptom I suppose of being on a gravy train. So could any regular readers please get in touch and offer some advice about setting up an account with a hosting service -- tell me which are the really good (cheap) ones were you've received excellent service (or at least half decent). I really need a hand with this. "
I'm sure there are other readers in the same boat. Any suggestions -- or at least links to articles on the net which have helped you ...
posted by feelinglistless at 1:51 PM on March 1, 2002
"Help! Plea to anyone within reading distance. You may have heard that Geocities are withdrawing free ftp access, which means if I can't get something sorted out within a month, no more 'feeling listless'. I can't sign up to the one of the premium services because they aren't being offered outside the US. This is all a symptom I suppose of being on a gravy train. So could any regular readers please get in touch and offer some advice about setting up an account with a hosting service -- tell me which are the really good (cheap) ones were you've received excellent service (or at least half decent). I really need a hand with this. "
I'm sure there are other readers in the same boat. Any suggestions -- or at least links to articles on the net which have helped you ...
posted by feelinglistless at 1:51 PM on March 1, 2002
feelinglistless: If you don't mind paying for your host try WebHostingTalk.com, it's a forum for webhosts, good place to ask reviews on potential hosts. Also Waferbaby's brother has a hosting company in Australia called segment publishing.
posted by riffola at 2:27 PM on March 1, 2002
posted by riffola at 2:27 PM on March 1, 2002
feelinglistless: Try Zero Catch. I don't know much about them as I just found it today, but it looks alright to me.
posted by thirteen at 4:20 PM on March 1, 2002
posted by thirteen at 4:20 PM on March 1, 2002
feelinglistless: I just looked at your profile, and I see you're a Brit like me. I use UKLinux. They charge £7.50 a month and you get php, cgi, mysql and other goodies. They have been reliable for me.
posted by crustygeek at 4:40 PM on March 1, 2002
posted by crustygeek at 4:40 PM on March 1, 2002
A good free Web host (no ads, 20MB space, unlimited bandwidth) is Apple. You have to sign up using a Mac, but once you have your iTools account, you can access the space via WebDAV, which allows you to access it easily from Windows or Linux, as if it were a regular network server. You also get email with POP3 or IMAP access (or forwarding) and authenticated SMTP, which is rather a nice package to get for free. I use my Mac.com e-mail address for registering domains and such since it'll always be there even if I change ISPs or sell a domain. The only thing you don't get is CGI, but it's fine for a Blogger or Radio site.
posted by kindall at 5:01 PM on March 1, 2002
posted by kindall at 5:01 PM on March 1, 2002
So I feel sort of naive about this, but let me expose it: I have a hobby site in geocities. It draws about 2500 hits per month (counting hits on all pages). Only once in a while I go over the 3gb bandwidth limit, which I could probably avoid by hosting the movies elsewhere (using brickshelf, for instance).
The question is: how can I better this setup, considering the fact that the site, as it is, works well for me. CGI and PHP would provide some cool add-ons (like visitor comments beyond a generic bulletin board system), but I'd rather use scripts hosted elsewhere and not worry about it.
At the end of the day, I think Geocities is great for niche & hobby site, but would love to be proved wrong.
posted by magullo at 5:15 PM on March 1, 2002
The question is: how can I better this setup, considering the fact that the site, as it is, works well for me. CGI and PHP would provide some cool add-ons (like visitor comments beyond a generic bulletin board system), but I'd rather use scripts hosted elsewhere and not worry about it.
At the end of the day, I think Geocities is great for niche & hobby site, but would love to be proved wrong.
posted by magullo at 5:15 PM on March 1, 2002
I use ess. (planetess.com) They've been good to me, and for you 'merricuns are in cheap Canadian Pesos.
posted by sauril at 9:18 PM on March 1, 2002
posted by sauril at 9:18 PM on March 1, 2002
Feelinglistless: I use xcalibre.co.uk and it's definatly is the way to go. £35 a year or so and with all the usual trimmings. Great customer support too.
posted by nedrichards at 5:51 AM on March 2, 2002
posted by nedrichards at 5:51 AM on March 2, 2002
For those interested in cheap IIS/ASP/.NET hosting, we've been pleased with Brinkster.
posted by normy at 7:42 AM on March 2, 2002
posted by normy at 7:42 AM on March 2, 2002
Egad. That picture on Brinkster's home page is scary.
Ack. I just trotted off to look, having not seen Brinkster's home page in ages. All I can say is, thank (insert deity of choice) for FTP.
posted by NsJen at 9:14 AM on March 2, 2002
Ack. I just trotted off to look, having not seen Brinkster's home page in ages. All I can say is, thank (insert deity of choice) for FTP.
posted by NsJen at 9:14 AM on March 2, 2002
I was with DigitalRice a long time ago, and I liked them.
posted by brownpau at 8:18 AM on March 3, 2002
posted by brownpau at 8:18 AM on March 3, 2002
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What free FTP-capable hosts do you recommend for these Blogger-users who will be booted out into the non-blogging darkness on April 2?
Is it possible that one reason Geocities is doing this is precisely because of the sudden popularity of blogging? Was the volume of Blogger-related FTP activity becoming too resources-intensive?
What does Ev think?
(Oh, okay, I just checked Evhead, and there's what he thinks.)
posted by brownpau at 7:53 AM on March 1, 2002