I'm sure you've heard this a million times by now, but I first got into web development because of Geocities in the mid-90s as a very young kid. Looking back, it was almost certainly the gateway drug that led me down the path to where I am today. So it's nice to know that something like this still exists and might inspire the next generation of programmers.
Same here. HTML was my first language. I missed the creativity of the old web. Going from wide open blank slates to 140 characters is not my definition of progress.
I do work very intentionally on not living in the past, though. The epiphany that led me to Neocities was that creating your own weird static HTML site was not an anachronistic activity, but rather something that was simply too early for it's time. I think it has become relevant and modern because of the massive improvements to HTML/CSS/JS.
> Going from wide open blank slates to 140 characters is not my definition of progress.
Why do you have to only use 140 chars? Frankly the "old web" is still there. You're just as free to create whatever you like using HTML and CSS and host it anywhere that works for you. In fact it's gotten easier: browsers are more consistent, CSS is getting more powerful, and there are a myriad static hosting options these days.
So go build something creative! ..and then share the hyperlink in some 140 char social network.
Frankly, a lot of it isn't. Culturally at least, even if some things like Tripod and Angelfire seem to still be around. Around the mid-90s, Geocities, Angelfire, Tripod, and similar hosts were the web to a lot of people, the way that Facebook and Twitter are the web to a lot of people now.
