Dot.coms have been having difficulties lately (January 2001), mostly of the monetary kind. I'm not sure what it was that caused Excite to decide to discontinue it's Communities services, but it's a fair guess that it's at least slightly connected to problems of that sort. I've got more guesses, but they'll have to wait for a future column. In the meantime, at least an explanation for what looks like an error is called for.

And about that page: It wasn't really true to my own form. I should have copied that page long ago, in the expectation that it wasn't going to be around for very long. Then again, in internet terms, two years is quite a long time. Chances are good that what's there as of this writing (January 2001) won't be there for too long either, so I've made a copy of the page that's presently there available.