~*~ WhAt'S nEw!? ~*~

~*~ srv1.qjoe.com gets a HOMEPAGE!! ~*~ A real visitor counter (no cookies, no tracking, bot-filtered, dedup'd by day, hashed-not-stored), a guestbook page, an HTTPS cert from those Letsencrypt angels 🙏 THE GEOCITIES SPIRIT LIVES ON 4EVAH ✨ ALSO: u r reading it RIGHT NOW. hi 👋

AI agents start clicking buttons 4 us 🤖🖱️ "browser-using bots" become a Thing -- they fill out forms while u sleep. Ppl rediscover RSS (it never actually left, NERDS). Plain text is BACK BABY. The cool kids are running little static sites again. (just like we always did 😎)

AI deepfakes invade an election yr around the world (oh no 😬). Generative video gets so good u can't trust ur own eyes. The web feels like 1996 again somehow but with trillion-parameter language models. Why is everyone making personal websites again?? (because they ROCK obvi 🤘)

AI EVERYWHERE!!1! GPT-4, Claude, Bard, Llama -- chatbots writing ur emails 📧 Reddit blackout protests, mods get spicy. Twitter becomes "X" overnight, the bird is dead 😢🐦 Threads launches w/ a bang & cools off in a week. Apple Vision Pro is announced (the goggles are HERE)

ChatGPT arrives Nov 30 -- ppl realize the homework era is OVER 🤖 Twitter changes hands (Elon enters the chat, carries a sink). Ethereum "merges" 2 Proof-of-Stake -- the GPUs sigh in relief. Russia invades Ukraine, the internet helps coordinate the world's response. Wordle becomes the only good thing left on Twitter

NFTs flood the timeline -- ppl pay MILLIONS 4 JPEGs of monkeys 🐒💸 (history WILL judge us). Facebook rebrands as "Meta" (nobody calls it that). Suez Canal blocked by 1 boat 🚢 the meme economy worked overtime. Log4Shell hits xmas IT teams hard, every junior dev learns about JNDI the hard way. GameStop go BRRRRR 📈 (briefly)

COVID locks the world inside, Zoom lights up everyone's bad lighting 💻🥴 TikTok dance crazes consume Q1 thru Q4. Working from home becomes default. ZOOM-BOMB invades elementary classrooms. Internet uptime: literally SAVED THE WORLD honestly. Among Us becomes ~vibe~. Sourdough starter discourse 🥖

💀 GeoCities JAPAN SHUTS DOWN March 31 -- the very last GeoCities outpost FOLDS 🌸 (the lights go out 4 real this time). TikTok takes over teens' brains. Disney+ launches & "Baby Yoda" breaks the internet. 5G rolls out (sort of). Greta Thunberg owns the timeline

GDPR pop-ups colonize the European Web 4 EVAH 🍪 (the new guestbook, except mandatory & boring). Cambridge Analytica scandal proves yes, Facebook sells u. Fortnite dance moves invade everywhere -- ppl floss at weddings now. KIKI DO U LOVE ME etc.

Net Neutrality gets SHREDDED in the U.S. (RIP open web 😭). WannaCry ransomware locks up hospitals worldwide -- "WANNA CRY?" yes actually. "Fake news" goes mainstream. Nintendo Switch resurrects handheld gaming. The fidget spinner has its 15 minutes. Bitcoin: $20K baby!! (briefly)

POKEMON GO sends millions outside (briefly) 🎮 ppl walk into traffic catching Pidgeys. Mirai botnet uses webcams 2 break the internet on Halloween 🎃 "Deepfake" enters the chat. The election is... very online. RIP Prince, RIP Bowie 🌹

HTTP/2 finally ships, only took 16 years ⏰ Windows 10 falls from the sky onto every PC (whether u wanted it or not). "The Dress" -- blue/black or white/gold?? -- ends some friendships. Ad blockers go mainstream, advertisers cry. Apple Watch arrives, ppl glance at wrist again like the 1980s

💔 HEARTBLEED: every secret on the internet gets a free trial, IT teams reset every password ever. Ice Bucket Challenge floods Facebook feeds 🥶 Tinder makes "swipe right" part of the language. Ello launches (RIP). Net Neutrality fight Round 1 in U.S.

Edward Snowden hands the NSA's homework to the journalists 🔒 -- the whole internet learns the word "metadata". "Selfie" is named word of the year (sigh). Vine gives us 6-second comedy (RIP RIP RIP 🪦). Harlem Shake breaks YouTube. Boston Marathon bombing -- the internet helps & also hurts

Gangnam Style breaks YouTube's view counter LITERALLY (had 2 upgrade from 32-bit) 🐎 Mars Rover Curiosity lands, its twitter account is funnier than most ppl. Facebook IPOs at $38, tanks within hrs (lol). Higgs Boson found 🔬 SOPA/PIPA gets BEAT BACK by the open web

WORLD IPv6 DAY (June 8): the big servers warm up to a bigger address space, the world doesn't end ✅ Snapchat lets u send pics that vanish (suuuure they vanish). Google+ launches w/ "circles" & promptly turns into a ghost town. Steve Jobs passes 🍎😢 The Arab Spring is broadcast live thru Twitter & Facebook

The GeoCities ARCHIVE TEAM frantically saves ~1 TERABYTE of pages before they vanish 4ever 🚛📦 (G0D BLESS THEM ⚡ all hail Jason Scott). Instagram filters ur lunch into looking 1973. iPad invents the tablet (again). Pinterest starts the recipe-pin era. WikiLeaks releases cables, the State Dept has a bad month

💀💀💀 R.I.P. GEOCITIES (USA) 💀💀💀 Yahoo pulls the plug Oct 26 -- ~38 MILLION pages turn 2 dust 😭🌹 The end of an era. The dancing baby goes home. Bing launches, ppl shrug. Twitter overtakes phone calls 4 breaking news (Hudson River plane landing). New Moon eats the multiplex 🐺

Chrome browser drops -- google now owns ur browser 2 (oh no, oh yes?). Bitcoin whitepaper appears, signed by some "Satoshi" guy. Lehman Brothers folds, dot-com bust era 2.0 (THE FINANCIAL BUST). Spotify launches in Europe 🎵 GeoCities chugs along, kinda quietly

📱 THE iPHONE ARRIVES -- ur web is now in ur POCKET (the world will not be the same). Android announced, the smartphone war begins. Tumblr launches -- it's like Geocities w/ infinite scroll & dashboard. RIAA vs. everyone continues. Sopranos finale: cuts to black 🖤

Twitter launches w/ a 140-character limit (less than this sentence fits!) 🐦 Facebook opens 2 the WHOLE WORLD (sry college kids, ur cool club is OVER). Blogs are EVERYWHERE -- even ur grandma has 1. YouTube bought by Google 4 a fat $1.65 BILLION (with a B). Pluto demoted from planethood 🪐 (this still hurts)

YouTube launches -- a place 2 watch ppl fall down (and soon, EVERYTHING) 🎥 Reddit shows up as a tiny weird link aggregator (frontpage of the internet TBD). "WEB 2.0" buzzword infects every business meeting -- mgmt loves it. GeoCities, meanwhile, just kinda... sits there. Hurricane Katrina, the internet rallies

A kid named Zuck starts thefacebook.com just 4 college nerds. Gmail offers a WHOLE GIGABYTE of email (ppl thought it was a prank, & it was on April 1 lol -- but real). Firefox 1.0 sticks it 2 Internet Explorer 🦊 World of Warcraft eats everyone's GPA (literally, sorry parents). Flickr launches

MySpace arrives -- pretty much GeoCities w/ MIDIs, top 8 friends, & Tom 🎶 Skype lets u call ur cousin in Russia 4 free (ear-to-ear WONDER). Apple launches iTunes Store, kills Napster's vibe officially. WordPress is born, blogs go mainstream. Iraq war coverage live-blogged

Friendster invents "social network" which is just GeoCities w/ less HTML & more drama. Mozilla 1.0 ships, Netscape weeps. Boy bands officially declared over (eh, debatable). LimeWire is HOW u get music (the viruses came free 🎁🦠). The first Spider-Man swings into the multiplex 🕷️

Yahoo! shoves the dreaded YAHOO! WATERMARK on every GeoCities page (R.I.P. ur design vision 😢). Wikipedia launches Jan 15 -- finally a place 4 ur essays nobody asked 4. Apple drops 1st iPod (1000 songs in ur pocket WOW). Code Red worm gets the IT dudes sweating. Sept 11 -- the internet becomes the news, and the news room. Mac OS X arrives

💥 DOT COM BUBBLE GOES POP 💥 Pets.com sock puppet weeps 4 us all. ILOVEYOU virus crashes inboxes worldwide (subject line: ILOVEYOU, attachment: catastrophe.vbs). Y2K turns out 2 b just a regular Tuesday thx 2 all the COBOL grandpas 👴 GeoCities' new yahoo overlords add more ADS 2 ur page (BOO!!)

💰💰 YAHOO! BUYS GEOCITIES 4 $3.57 BILLION!!! 💰💰 (Jan 28) -- the homestead just got a new landlord ~*~ Napster melts the music industry's brain. Y2K panic peaks (will the airplanes fall??). AOL Buddy List rules the universe. ALL YOUR BASE ARE BELONG TO US. LiveJournal & Blogger arrive, blogging is born

🚀 GeoCities IPOs!!! Stock goes from $17 to $100 in months WOW $$$ ~ 2 dorks in a Stanford garage start a search engine called G00gle (incorporated Sep 4). iMac arrives in TANGERINE & GRAPE & STRAWBERRY 🍎 Bill Clinton learns abt cigars. Furby invades the holidays. The <MARQUEE> tag is officially everyone's favorite

⭐ GeoCities CRACKS 1 MILLION USERS -- bigger than most countries on the WeB!!! ☆ google.com gets registered (some Stanford kid Larry Page). AIM lets u IM yer crush in real time -- A/S/L? Hotmail bought by Microsoft. "Six Degrees" launches as the 1st recognizably "social" network. Princess Diana 🌹

GeoCities hits 100K homesteaders!! u r officially N0T ALONE on the Web ✨ Macromedia Flash 1.0 brings DANCING BABIES & skip-intros 2 the web. ICQ goes UH-OH 🔔 Hotmail launches 4 free email u can keep even when u change ISPs (whoa). The browser wars heat up: NN3 vs. IE3. Pokemon released in Japan 🎮

BHI rebrands as GEOCITIES!!1! pick yer "neighborhood" -- HOLLYWOOD, SUNSETSTRIP, AREA51, SILICONVALLEY -- homestead UR free page!! ☆ Windows 95 makes everyone reboot. JavaScript invented in 10 days flat (lol Brendan, lol). Netscape goes public, market goes BANANAS 🍌 eBay opens 4 yer Pez collection. Amazon launches book sales. Toy Story is the 1st all-CGI movie

~*~ Some kids in California start "Beverly Hills Internet" which lets U make a HOMEPAGE 4 FREE ~*~ (the seed of GeoCities is planted 🌱 by David Bohnett & John Rezner). Mosaic browser drops, Netscape Communications gets founded by Marc Andreessen & Jim Clark. A couple of nerds named Jerry & David start "Jerry & David's Guide to the World Wide Web" (l8r known as YAHOO!) ★ Amazon opens 4 biz selling B00KS. Pizza Hut takes the 1st online order 🍕 (a small pepperoni)