Sometime today, the servers for what once was one of the most popular sites on the web will be shut off. As earlier announced, Yahoo will be shutting down the once very popular GeoCities web hosting service for good. The company says it will not be archiving the content, so if you have an old webpage there you better act quickly to do it yourself.

The company did say the Internet Archive was archiving content from the GeoCities servers, however there’s no guarantee it would have every page.

Yahoo announced its plans to do away with the service back in April of this year. The company said at the time that “we have decided to focus on helping our customers explore and build relationships online in other ways,” and suggested those that would like to continue hosting with Yahoo migrate their websites to one of the company’s paid hosting plans.

Either way, its sad to see GeoCities go, even though the service now is a far cry from its heyday in the late 1990s-early 2000s. Chances are if you were an Internet geek at that point, you at least had one website on the service. I know personally I either created or lended a hand in creating at least three.

I wonder if it’s still there? I’ll have to search. Would be a nice trip down memory lane…

TechCrunch’s Leena Rao is reporting that Yahoo Mail is suffering a widespread but non-universal outage at the moment. Yup, I can’t get in to my account, but the first person I asked to check was fine.

Rao also says that Yahoo Mail is the most popular Webmail service, with over 300 million users. Let’s see if this glitch attracts even a meaningful fraction of the attention that the smaller-but-higher-profile Gmail’s hiccups prompt…

Yahoo plans to spend $100 million marketing itself, and it’s posted the ad that kicks off the new campaign:

If you showed an alien this ad, he (she? it?) would come to the conclusion that Yahoo is a place where nobody’s old, bald, fat, or ugly–and where nobody uses computers. Whatever problems Yahoo has, they don’t avoid a shortage of users; I think it’s less about encouraging folks to use the site and more about attempting to glamorize the Yahoo name and remind marketers that a heck of a lot of folks use Yahoo for all sorts of purposes everyday.

Fair enough, I guess-but the emphasis on personalization (“It’s You”) feels like it’s still catching up with the reality of today’s Internet, where there’s hardly anything that isn’t really customizable, and where stuff created by real people is a primary attraction almost everywhere. If you stripped out the explicit Yahoo references and told me this was an ad for Windows Live, I’d believe you.

Your thoughts?

On Monday, Yahoo unveiled significant revisions to its search engine, as detailed in this blog post. I like the new stuff–especially the embedded YouTube videos (despite owning YouTube, Google doesn’t embed it in search results) and the overall performance (as Yahoo claims, the new engine feels fast). But given Yahoo’s plans to turn its search infrastructure over to Microsoft’s Bing, feeling good about Yahoo search paradoxically leaves me kinda uneasy.  It’s still not clear whether Yahoo touches like the Search Pad research tool will survive the Bing takeover. On the other hand, it’s also not completely clear that the feds will approve the Microsoft deal.

This I do know: Yahoo search is still stuck in an odd limbo. If it’s going to be Binged, I hope it happens expeditiously. But as a mere user of Yahoo rather than an investor, I’m not so sure that I wouldn’t prefer to have Yahoo and Microsoft continue to duke it out with each other as well as with Google to build the best possible search engine.

The U.S. Department of Justice is placing the Microsoft-Yahoo search partnership under greater scrutiny, according to reports. The DOJ is allegedly requesting more information about ad pricing, product plans, and search engine investments.

Microsoft was prosecuted in the 1990s for abusing its monopoly position in the desktop operating system market, so it comes as no surprise that the company is operating under the long shadow of government regulators. However, in the search engine area Microsoft is playing underdog to Google, which comScore reports held 64.7 percent share of the U.S search market in July.

In comparison, Microsoft’s Bing and Yahoo have a combined 28.2 percent share. If the deal is approved, Microsoft will be in a position to claw its way up to compete with Google. The company is rumored to be preparing to launch an upgrade to Bing before the end of the month, and is spending profusely to promote Bing.

The only people who have any right to be upset about the deal are Yahoo’s shareholders. Shortly after the deal was announced, some shareholders began to cry bloody murder over Yahoo’s use of the Bing search engine for nothing in return.

Further, Yahoo did not receive an upfront payment to make the deal happen, as many Yahoo investors had hoped. The deal’s complexity also makes it unlikely that any company other than Microsoft will be able to acquire Yahoo over its 10-year duration. None of that concerns the DOJ.

Do you remember the first time you searched the Web? I do. In vivid detail. It was in late October or early November of 1994, in a conference room at PC World. My friend Pete Loshin showed me a new site that he explained could find information on the Internet. I performed this query as a test, and was amazed by the results. Which probably amounted to all of ten or fifteen sites–but hey, we’re talking 1994.

The search site was, of course, Yahoo–the site that introduced the world to the idea of finding stuff on the Web, and prospered by doing so. So I’m puzzled (along with others) by new Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz’s statement to the New York Times that Yahoo has “never been a search company.”

Okay, I’m not completely surprised. Yahoo stopped being focused entirely on search pretty early on. It tended to outsource aspects of search to competitors such as AltaVista and, later, Google–and then it had its lunch eaten by Google. After a period of trying to build its own world-class search engine, it’s now decided to outsource the whole shebang to Microsoft for the next decade. Yahoo’s future, clearly, is not about search–and I guess it’s convenient to maintain that its past wasn’t, either.

But I can’t believe I’m the only person who became entranced by the early Web in part because early Yahoo was so amazing who’s saddened to see the company keep its own roots at arm’s length, as it were. Here’s the Yahoo I remember–except this version is from 1996, so the one I visited in 1994 would have been even cruder.

Rumor has it that Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer, flummoxed over press leaks, decreed that password protection be added to Office 2003. Ironically, Ballmer inadvertently detailed the transition costs of the company’s ten year search deal with Yahoo during his presentation at the Microsoft’s Financial Analyst Meeting (FAM) yesterday.

A slide marked “not for disclosure” found its way into the CEO’s PowerPoint deck. The slide itemized $675 million in transition costs, and revealed that Microsoft expects to absorb a $300 million loss during the first two years of the deal. Over time, the company expects to begin earning a “decent return” of “$400 million steady-state.”

The cost breakdown is: $90 million in retention costs, $170 million in R&D costs for paid search, $145 million for Cost of Goods Sold (hosting costs), $150 million in sign-on costs, $70 million for search algorithm R&D, and $50 million for advertiser migration.

The costs could conceivably have been disclosed in annual reports as a footnote or rolled up into other costs, but under SEC rules, Microsoft is allowed to be vague in its forecasts. I also don’t see why revenue would have to be reported separately for the partnership. Ballmer might be big on passwords, but there is no accounting for human error.

Google: Microsoft/Yahoo partnership bad.

3Jam launches Google Voice competition.

AT&T shirks Google Voice blame.

Apple Time Capsule hits 2TB.

The problem with digital frames.

I want a Gorillamobile mount.

Absurdly small 32GB USB drive.

It won’t be a truly done deal until it gets regulatory approval, but Microsoft and Yahoo have finally agreed to a partnership which, among other things, will make Bing the search engine on Yahoo and have Yahoo selling ads on Bing. The two companies’ explanation of why this is a good idea is summed up in the name of the microsite about the deal which they’ve launched: ChoiceValueInnovation.com.

Thing 1:

In Microsoft’s press release, CEO Steve Ballmer explains why this is a good idea for everyone concerned:

Through this agreement with Yahoo!, we will create more innovation in search, better value for advertisers and real consumer choice in a market currently dominated by a single company.

Setting aside the question of whether this’ll turn out to be good for consumers–it might–isn’t it bizarre to see the CEO of Microsoft arguing that a market being dominated by one company is bad for consumers?

Thing 2:

Back in 2004, Yahoo dumped Google as its search engine in favor of its own homegrown engine–the one it now plans to ditch for Bing. Back then, its press release explained the benefits thusly:

The combination of a world-class engineering team and proprietary search technologies, together with Yahoo!’s global reach, breadth and depth of content and leading network assets, uniquely positions Yahoo! to change the game in search.

That was Yahoo Senior VP Jeff Weiner. Here’s current Yahoo CEO Carol Bartz on the Microsoft deal:

This agreement comes with boatloads of value for Yahoo!, our users, and the industry. And I believe it establishes the foundation for a new era of Internet innovation and development. Users will continue to experience search as a vital part of their Yahoo! experiences and will enjoy increased innovation thanks to the scale and resources this deal provides.

In 2004, being proprietary was supposed to provide the scale and resources that would change search for the better; now it’s outsourcing search to Microsoft that’s supposed to accomplish the same results. Oddly enough, nobody ever issues a press release about a deal quoting an executive explaining why it’s a bad idea…even though many deals turn out to be disappointing. (McCracken’s third law of tech-company press releases: Any news described in any press release will always lead to increased innovation…)

Yahoo/Microsoft: finally, finally, finally.

Does Yahoo risk becoming AOL?

Windows 7 Ultimate activation cracked.

Vudu service on LG TVs.

Apple: Jailbreaking iPhones is daaaaaangerous.

Logitech introduces seven new Webcams.

New Eye-Fi card automatically geotags.

Barnes and Noble’s Free Wi-Fi.

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Multiple reliable sources are reporting that Microsoft and Yahoo have finalized a deal to work together on search and advertising, and it’ll be announced tomorrow. It’s not the merger that Microsoft wasted an immense amount of time on last year, and it’s apparently not as sweeping an arrangement as some folks thought the company would strike. But it’s still a big deal.

For consumers, the major net effect will apparently be that Bing (or some variant thereof) will power Yahoo’s search. Unless you love Yahoo’s current engine or hate Bing, that’s nothing to fear, and it won’t have a major impact on your life. (Or any impact at all if, like the majority of folks, you do your searching at Google.)

For Yahoo, it’s yet another new search strategy. (Once upon a time, the company outsourced search to Google, then decided it was a core part of its business and built its own search engine; now it’s once again something it’s decided it can outsource.) For Microsoft, it helps scratch the must-take-on-Google itch that the company’s had trouble taking care of.

I still think that when the history of Microsoft is written ten or twenty years from now, it’ll be obvious that  search engines and Web advertising  were distractions that kept the company from focusing on its real businesses–operating systems, programming tools, productivity software, and a few other related related areas. For now, though, both Microsoft and Yahoo can end their odd tango and move ahead with a partnership. And we tech journalists who have spent a year and a half writing about all this get more time to devote to other, more concrete matters. Like, for instance, the existence or nonexistence of an Apple tablet that’ll be released either in September or sometime next year…

Yahoo is rolling out a revised version of its home page today. It represents no radical change, but it’s nice–and almost every change feels like it was made in the interest of Yahoo users.

At first glance, the old home page (which you can choose to retain) and the new one don’t look much different, except for the fact that the site has finally switched to a purple logo. (The Yahoo folks think that purple’s emblematic of the Yahoo brand, although I don’t know many consumers who make that connection.)

Continue reading this story…

A cadre of Microsoft executives is in Silicon Valley to iron a search and online advertising deal with Yahoo, All Things Digital’s Kara Swisher is reporting.

The executives include senior vice president of the company’s Online Audience Business Group Yusuf Mehdi, Online Services Group president Qi Lu, and Online Services senior vice president Satya Nadella, according the report. The terms of the deal allegedly involve Microsoft paying Yahoo billions of dollars upfront to run its search advertising business; Yahoo will receive certain guaranteed payments.

Some sticking points have involved who will have control over data, and traffic acquisition cost rates, the report says. However, I thinkthat Yahoo will take the deal: Despite its new technology initiatives, its market share is slowly decaying.

Meanwhile, Microsoft’s Bing search engine has been received favorably, and it has managed to steal some market share away from Google and Yahoo. It is still too soon to tell whether a trend if developing (it launched last month), but Microsoft’s $90 million advertising campaign won’t hurt its chances at popularity.

Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer is like a pit bull–he never lets go after he sets his jaws around something. There has been a persistent campaign to strike a deal with Yahoo. All Things Digital says that it could happen as soon as next week. Now we wait.

Yahoo is adding a new feature to its search engine that it hopes will attract researchers to its product. Called Search Pad, the offering aims it make it easier to capture and organize information culled from search results. The feature could be useful if you spend a lot of time on search engines for research purposes.

The company plans to launch the feature at midnight, so if you want to check it out you’ll have to wait until then.

Essentially Search Pad would detect when a users is performing research, and offer options to save information in a central place. For example when research begins, links and thumbnails to websites are automatically saved. From there, the user can organize the information as they desire. Free-form note taking is also available.

If you see something that you’d like to include on the Search Pad that is not automatically added, drag and drop functionality will allow that, Yahoo says.

From there, if the user wishes to share their notes, printing and e-mail options are offered. Yahoo has also added social networking features, allowing Search Pad information to be shared over social networks such as Delicious, Facebook, and Twitter.

I’m not exactly sure whether Search Pad is a big enough feature to cause any great shift in market share to the #2 search engine, however it is something different. Differentiating yourself is a good thing these days.

Google interpreted the swell of searches inspired by the passing of entertainer Michael Jackson as a malicious attack on its Google News service, according to reports.

People searching for news about the music icon after word spread about his condition were met by a cryptic message: “We’re sorry, but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can’t process your request right now.”

It may sound as if Google goofed, but on the contrary, its system worked almost flawlessly. The alert was probably automatic, because traffic was at a significantly higher volume than under normal conditions, and many searches were mobile searches. The company caught onto what was really happening approximately 25 minutes later, CNET reported.

Google did not release specific traffic data, but Yahoo received 16.4 million visitors within 24 hours. The fact that both sites remained accessible is laudable; there was no change in performance from my end.

Had there been a major emergency somewhere in the world, the search giants would have remained a useful conduit for people seeking credible information about what was going on. The companies also showed that they could effectively protect their services from an actual attack.