You may have read that Yahoo is closing the door on GeoCities. This was announced a week ago after about ten years of Yahoo ownership.

“We have decided to discontinue the process of allowing new customers to sign up for GeoCities accounts as we focus on helping our customers explore and build new relationships online in other ways,” GeoCities noted.

At webproworld, Doug Caverly raised an interesting point about how Yahoo is so quick to give up on a nice chunk of traffic. “Plotted against Twitter, GeoCities comes out on top in terms of unique visitors for 12 of the last 13 months,” he said. “That’s nothing to sneer at.”

It appears that Wetpaint in addition to partnering with Microsoft may be looking to catch some of that if Yahoo doesn’t want it (if users can bring their audiences with them). While they will not be taking over the domains or anything, MSN has partnered with Wetpaint to allow people to create fansites. And Wetpaint has also just announced a “Bailout Plan for Foreclosed Geocities Properties” – the “Geocities Asset Recovery Plan (GARP).”

“America needs to recognize that bailouts and asset recovery plans aren’t just for physical businesses and homeowners anymore.  Creating, nurturing and maintaining an online home and community takes an incredible amount of passion and hard work, and to have all that taken away in a nanosecond is a shame,” said Rob Grady, SVP Marketing, Wetpaint.  “With GARP, we are committed to helping great communities find a new home that lets everyone easily contribute and start the rebuilding process.”

Wetpaint will offer a free custom domain to the first 1000 qualified ex-Geocities residents. The “GARP” will also include a series of webinar style Q&A sessions with a Wetpaint Community Building Expert, who will be present in live chat format to answer questions related to shipping existing content from Geocities sites to Wetpaint.