The views of this article are the perspective of the author and may not be reflective of Confessions of the Professions.
Web Masters is a brand new podcast that explores the history of the Internet through conversations and stories with some of its most important innovators. You can listen to the latest podcast here and read more about the newest episode in the transcript here.
Aaron Dinin, the host of the new podcast Web Masters, spoke with David Bohnett to discuss the creation of GeoCities.
GeoCities was invented before Facebook, even before My Space, it was one of the first social networks if you like, where the public could share their interests. David set up GeoCities in 1994, which at the time was a revolutionary invention. Talking about how his interest started, David said:
“Ever since high school, I had a great interest in both business and a career in business, as well as computer science. And I was fortunate that in my high school, we had a teletype time-sharing terminal, where I learned basic programming language and could execute those programs on punch tape. So, that was really my first introduction to structured computer programming.”
After enrolling at the University of Southern California to study computer science, David graduated and got his first job with Anderson Consulting and was trained in a variety of computer languages. Speaking more about his interest in the web, David said:
“I had a lot of background and curiosity and interest in online services prior to my first introduction to the web in 1993. I’d had one of the first IBM PCs. And then when modems came out, I had a 300 baud modem. That just changed everything because you had this hunk of metal on your desk that could run spreadsheets and word processing, but when you had a modem and you could connect a phone line, it created an entirely different experience because all of a sudden this inert machine that was just sitting on the desk doing tasks was now connected to the outside world through the telephone line.”
Soon after his first job, David set up his own internet-based business, Beverly Hills Internet. Alongside his co-founder, John Rezner, David spread the word that they were starting web hosting. The pair would create very simple rudimentary websites for companies that wanted to have a presence on the internet. Despite David having his own internet-based business, he claims it wasn’t his passion, so he continued to look for ways to create something truly unique. And along came GeoCities. Explaining the way GeoCities worked, David said:
“It was all subject matter based. And we gave people the tools to create their own webpages around these subjects because a lot of people have a lot to share about their passions. Maybe it’s books, maybe it’s music, maybe it’s fan pages. We organize this in a way that people felt a sense of community, because there were other people that were in the same virtual neighborhood creating similar kinds of pages.”
“I thought we would have a long life as an independent public company, but there was a land grab for companies with high traffic. We had a lot of high traffic and Yahoo was very highly valued at the time. And so, we did a phenomenally large deal that benefited quite a few people. And I’ve always been very grateful and appreciative.”
After becoming a huge success, David sold the company to Yahoo in 1999:
“I thought we would have a long life as an independent public company, but there was a land grab for companies with high traffic. We had a lot of high traffic and Yahoo was very highly valued at the time. And so, we did a phenomenally large deal that benefited quite a few people. And I’ve always been very grateful and appreciative.”
Some key takeaways from the podcast:
GeoCities was the first social network created by David Bohnett
David sold GeoCities to Yahoo in 1999 for a huge deal
GeoCities went viral at great speeds without any financial help or promotion.
Web Masters, the new podcast set to talk about technology with some of the biggest tech giants across the US and world, is available to listen to on all platforms. Subscribe to hear from more internet and tech giants here.
