Category Archives: Websites

Top-Level Domain Popularity

In a crawl of just over 32 million pages, this is the number of domains that I discovered for each top-level domain (TLD). The “Known Domains” is the number of domains with that extension that were found in links, while the “Crawled Domains” is the number of domains where pages were retrieved from.

Extension Known Domains Crawled Domains
.aaa 5 2
.aarp 1 0
.abarth 1 1
.abb 9 1
.abbott 74 32
.abbvie 0 0
.abc 9 1
.able 0 0
.abogado 82 47
.abudhabi 12 2
.ac 1404 540
.academy 9638 6340
.accenture 1 0
.accountant 550 347
.accountants 611 417
.aco 6 6
.actor 682 444
.ad 726 143
.adac 1 1
.ads 29 0
.adult 4438 3832
.ae 15743 8579
.aeg 1 1
.aero 4000 2179
.aetna 0 0
.af 1279 435
.afamilycompany 0 0
.afl 13 8
.africa 305 152
.ag 2497 1325
.agakhan 0 0
.agency 14562 9300
.ai 4685 2083
.aig 1 0
.aigo 0 0
.airbus 0 0
.airforce 101 60
.airtel 0 0
.akdn 0 0
.al 3944 1224
.alfaromeo 0 0
.alibaba 0 0
.alipay 0 0
.allfinanz 1 0
.allstate 0 0
.ally 1 0
.alsace 85 43
.alstom 0 0
.am 8687 3314
.americanexpress 0 0
.americanfamily 0 0
.amex 4 0
.amfam 0 0
.amica 3 1
.amsterdam 15930 13438
.analytics 3 0
.android 2 0
.anquan 0 0
.anz 1 0
.ao 1051 541
.aol 1 0
.apartments 1395 963
.app 3397 1067
.apple 13 0
.aq 60 31
.aquarelle 13 12
.ar 290350 193365
.arab 0 0
.aramco 2 1
.archi 934 633
.army 384 241
.arpa 2 0
.art 1305 467
.arte 4 1
.as 2027 1219
.asda 1 0
.asia 87348 48153
.associates 959 693
.at 482762 283611
.athleta 0 0
.attorney 3192 2492
.au 676566 422310
.auction 1032 694
.audi 146 53
.audible 1 1
.audio 2662 1675
.auspost 6 3
.author 3 0
.auto 143 69
.autos 2 0
.avianca 0 0
.aw 209 141
.aws 30 2
.ax 627 343
.axa 9 4
.az 9198 2090
.azure 3 1
.ba 8972 5858
.baby 10 2
.baidu 3 0
.banamex 0 0
.bananarepublic 0 0
.band 2997 1914
.bank 493 277
.bar 2210 1382
.barcelona 144 56
.barclaycard 9 3
.barclays 21 4
.barefoot 0 0
.bargains 895 597
.baseball 0 0
.basketball 36 15
.bauhaus 1 1
.bayern 267 168
.bb 362 225
.bbc 4 0
.bbt 2 0
.bbva 1 1
.bcg 0 0
.bcn 3 0
.bd 3134 986
.be 394979 286735
.beats 1 0
.beauty 4 0
.beer 315 160
.bentley 1 0
.berlin 15650 9387
.best 249 135
.bestbuy 1 0
.bet 627 229
.bf 386 175
.bg 26043 3364
.bh 777 336
.bharti 0 0
.bi 379 157
.bible 113 50
.bid 2039 539
.bike 6624 4226
.bing 2 1
.bingo 428 240
.bio 6462 4167
.biz 966268 563218
.bj 176 75
.black 1335 904
.blackfriday 505 325
.blockbuster 0 0
.blog 5342 1900
.bloomberg 73 0
.blue 4297 2433
.bm 1284 747
.bms 1 1
.bmw 7 2
.bn 375 137
.bnl 0 0
.bnpparibas 41 20
.bo 3129 2072
.boats 3 2
.boehringer 0 0
.bofa 1 0
.bom 3 1
.bond 1 1
.boo 2 0
.book 2 0
.booking 3 0
.bosch 0 0
.bostik 1 0
.boston 16 6
.bot 55 22
.boutique 3123 1923
.box 26 0
.br 661574 387097
.bradesco 37 20
.bridgestone 3 1
.broadway 0 0
.broker 51 29
.brother 5 2
.brussels 568 182
.bs 209 80
.bt 488 220
.budapest 1 1
.bugatti 4 1
.build 217 137
.builders 1551 1086
.business 4597 3145
.buy 1 0
.buzz 1232 920
.bv 2 0
.bw 582 259
.by 20281 2547
.bz 6646 3668
.bzh 640 310
.ca 494823 303073
.cab 103 18
.cafe 3211 2111
.cal 5 0
.call 9 0
.calvinklein 0 0
.cam 143 34
.camera 1913 1259
.camp 2508 1595
.cancerresearch 1 1
.canon 27 9
.capetown 1731 1270
.capital 2808 1984
.capitalone 2 0
.car 100 36
.caravan 1 1
.cards 1905 1182
.care 5833 4047
.career 14 8
.careers 3172 2019
.cars 103 34
.cartier 1 1
.casa 103 47
.case 0 0
.caseih 0 0
.cash 2524 1701
.casino 1551 999
.cat 30073 8075
.catering 1397 982
.catholic 0 0
.cba 9 0
.cbn 2 1
.cbre 1 0
.cbs 1 0
.cc 109058 39325
.cd 638 243
.ceb 7 1
.center 14026 8734
.ceo 47 18
.cern 19 12
.cf 7736 3354
.cfa 5 1
.cfd 3 1
.cg 114 32
.ch 529953 328052
.chanel 1 1
.channel 1 0
.charity 3 2
.chase 1 0
.chat 2957 1875
.cheap 1275 880
.chintai 1 0
.christmas 684 462
.chrome 2 0
.chrysler 0 0
.church 8726 5577
.ci 1038 447
.cipriani 1 1
.circle 0 0
.cisco 4 0
.citadel 0 0
.citi 3 0
.citic 10 1
.city 8574 5998
.cityeats 0 0
.ck 113 65
.cl 191023 121801
.claims 625 450
.cleaning 891 596
.click 9651 5813
.clinic 2513 1558
.clinique 0 0
.clothing 4731 3183
.cloud 19563 11822
.club 97931 58118
.clubmed 6 3
.cm 1346 494
.cn 265238 56575
.co 384542 252055
.coach 3315 2318
.codes 3058 2344
.coffee 5140 3385
.college 1437 1034
.cologne 1071 499
.com 13873332 7043596
.comcast 1 0
.commbank 0 0
.community 4093 2578
.company 18672 12938
.compare 1 0
.computer 2134 1324
.comsec 0 0
.condos 922 722
.construction 2889 2029
.consulting 8542 5905
.contact 2 0
.contractors 1625 1141
.cooking 21 7
.cookingchannel 0 0
.cool 5408 3315
.coop 5437 2905
.corsica 65 29
.country 86 51
.coupon 1 0
.coupons 600 422
.courses 384 224
.cr 4117 2143
.credit 931 638
.creditcard 305 213
.creditunion 2 1
.cricket 537 329
.crown 3 2
.crs 29 22
.cruise 0 0
.cruises 1138 868
.csc 2 0
.cu 1310 582
.cuisinella 2 1
.cv 485 291
.cw 133 64
.cx 1859 710
.cy 2286 1211
.cymru 2962 1880
.cyou 1 0
.cz 511459 318754
.dabur 1 1
.dad 1 0
.dance 2245 1420
.data 6 0
.date 2654 1153
.dating 1204 813
.datsun 1 1
.day 1 0
.dclk 1 0
.dds 1 0
.de 1549945 947359
.deal 0 0
.dealer 0 0
.deals 3135 2193
.degree 176 97
.delivery 970 619
.dell 0 0
.deloitte 0 0
.delta 2 1
.democrat 260 191
.dental 3232 2110
.dentist 1156 861
.desi 575 403
.design 15331 10090
.dev 893 485
.dhl 9 4
.diamonds 1229 889
.diet 779 544
.digital 8922 5915
.direct 4063 2927
.directory 6229 4730
.discount 1844 1173
.discover 1 0
.dish 0 0
.diy 2 0
.dj 500 268
.dk 343151 280337
.dm 129 64
.dnp 6 2
.do 3578 1635
.docs 2 0
.doctor 522 120
.dodge 0 0
.dog 2630 1763
.domains 2811 1715
.dot 6 0
.download 1848 613
.drive 4 0
.dtv 0 0
.dubai 0 0
.duck 0 0
.dunlop 0 0
.duns 0 0
.dupont 0 0
.durban 832 566
.dvag 10 2
.dvr 0 0
.dz 1767 814
.earth 1840 1318
.eat 1 0
.ec 7957 5105
.eco 135 69
.edeka 8 2
.edu 187599 100044
.education 8609 5628
.ee 35647 22095
.eg 3556 1038
.email 3779 2700
.emerck 0 0
.energy 2445 1643
.engineer 786 516
.engineering 1945 1261
.enterprises 2086 1510
.epson 1 1
.equipment 2667 1857
.er 14 2
.ericsson 0 0
.erni 5 2
.es 503765 286165
.esq 0 0
.estate 3769 2660
.esurance 0 0
.et 576 196
.etisalat 0 0
.eu 419001 235690
.eurovision 1 1
.eus 4185 2282
.events 8968 5898
.everbank 2 1
.exchange 2294 1528
.expert 13573 9239
.exposed 905 701
.express 1490 967
.extraspace 0 0
.fage 8 6
.fail 1112 813
.fairwinds 0 0
.faith 677 339
.family 3265 2487
.fan 23 10
.fans 432 247
.farm 4594 3258
.farmers 1 0
.fashion 2460 1662
.fast 3 0
.fedex 0 0
.feedback 197 78
.ferrari 0 0
.ferrero 0 0
.fi 220758 127408
.fiat 0 0
.fidelity 0 0
.fido 0 0
.film 953 568
.final 2 1
.finance 2168 1493
.financial 1348 929
.fire 4 1
.firestone 0 0
.firmdale 41 1
.fish 578 356
.fishing 26 13
.fit 3189 2207
.fitness 3269 2244
.fj 482 265
.fk 42 13
.flickr 1 0
.flights 808 575
.flir 0 0
.florist 1132 771
.flowers 756 481
.fly 1 0
.fm 12330 8030
.fo 1467 886
.foo 9 0
.food 3 0
.foodnetwork 0 0
.football 1770 1351
.ford 3 0
.forex 21 9
.forsale 1980 1507
.forum 2 0
.foundation 3320 2312
.fox 11 2
.fr 643262 334399
.free 12 0
.fresenius 0 0
.frl 9305 7762
.frogans 1 0
.frontdoor 0 0
.frontier 0 0
.ftr 0 0
.fujitsu 0 0
.fujixerox 0 0
.fun 3122 686
.fund 2088 1378
.furniture 868 597
.futbol 896 653
.fyi 2502 1806
.ga 8892 3830
.gal 1844 1038
.gallery 7602 5129
.gallo 0 0
.gallup 0 0
.game 148 38
.games 782 248
.gap 1 0
.garden 618 413
.gb 6 0
.gbiz 0 0
.gd 1053 481
.gdn 505 45
.ge 8048 2317
.gea 0 0
.gent 857 467
.genting 1 1
.george 0 0
.gf 40 11
.gg 6276 3820
.ggee 1 1
.gh 1083 527
.gi 474 265
.gift 1911 1169
.gifts 1150 735
.gives 358 229
.giving 2 1
.gl 989 443
.glade 0 0
.glass 1516 1039
.gle 2 0
.global 2250 1360
.globo 57 3
.gm 227 120
.gmail 3 0
.gmbh 280 257
.gmo 1 1
.gmx 0 0
.gn 38 11
.godaddy 2 0
.gold 1738 739
.goldpoint 1 1
.golf 2307 1626
.goo 15 1
.goodyear 0 0
.goog 20 0
.google 41 7
.gop 137 67
.got 2 0
.gov 39295 19002
.gp 542 199
.gq 4137 1674
.gr 255119 146141
.grainger 0 0
.graphics 3280 2144
.gratis 1751 1186
.green 131 61
.gripe 363 280
.grocery 0 0
.group 1186 706
.gs 1077 420
.gt 4323 2647
.gu 24 11
.guardian 4 0
.gucci 1 0
.guge 1 0
.guide 6145 4430
.guitars 535 381
.guru 23285 17219
.gw 15 6
.gy 523 243
.hair 1 0
.hamburg 305 189
.hangout 1 0
.haus 1796 1215
.hbo 0 0
.hdfc 0 0
.hdfcbank 0 0
.health 229 151
.healthcare 2589 1853
.help 4430 2641
.helsinki 0 0
.here 18 0
.hermes 1 0
.hgtv 0 0
.hiphop 342 234
.hisamitsu 3 1
.hitachi 3 1
.hiv 150 86
.hk 42346 15826
.hkt 0 0
.hm 134 50
.hn 1191 663
.hockey 388 218
.holdings 1982 1358
.holiday 2578 1650
.homedepot 3 0
.homegoods 0 0
.homes 18 14
.homesense 0 0
.honda 4 2
.honeywell 0 0
.horse 205 97
.hospital 8 2
.host 2805 792
.hosting 1590 927
.hot 18 0
.hoteles 1 0
.hotels 1 0
.hotmail 2 1
.house 6318 4484
.how 785 489
.hr 36459 22489
.hsbc 7 1
.ht 491 231
.hu 359105 254012
.hughes 1 0
.hyatt 0 0
.hyundai 1 1
.ibm 3 0
.icbc 1 1
.ice 11 2
.icu 9620 2978
.id 54716 12406
.ie 154458 91810
.ieee 0 0
.ifm 2 0
.ikano 2 2
.il 150023 34255
.im 4018 1921
.imamat 1 0
.imdb 2 1
.immo 5846 3124
.immobilien 4698 2950
.in 399200 235689
.inc 22 6
.industries 1262 849
.infiniti 1 1
.info 519439 280079
.ing 0 0
.ink 3898 2211
.institute 3610 2533
.insurance 10 8
.insure 1497 1028
.int 1671 569
.intel 0 0
.international 8481 5800
.intuit 1 0
.investments 1168 858
.io 154605 60348
.ipiranga 6 1
.iq 717 88
.ir 250770 45464
.irish 641 487
.is 16493 9459
.iselect 0 0
.ismaili 2 1
.ist 147 57
.istanbul 163 62
.it 790513 470658
.itau 9 2
.itv 1 0
.iveco 0 0
.jaguar 0 0
.java 13 0
.jcb 8 3
.jcp 0 0
.je 730 396
.jeep 0 0
.jetzt 1411 810
.jewelry 884 583
.jio 0 0
.jll 6 2
.jm 493 285
.jmp 1 0
.jnj 0 0
.jo 1774 842
.jobs 12415 5771
.joburg 1153 798
.jot 0 0
.joy 0 0
.jp 839358 183282
.jpmorgan 0 0
.jprs 2 0
.juegos 272 174
.juniper 2 0
.kaufen 4823 2767
.kddi 1 1
.ke 6331 3380
.kerryhotels 0 0
.kerrylogistics 0 0
.kerryproperties 0 0
.kfh 0 0
.kg 2377 324
.kh 1114 503
.ki 194 54
.kia 1 1
.kim 3773 1969
.kinder 2 0
.kindle 1 1
.kitchen 2518 1727
.kiwi 1465 943
.km 58 26
.kn 58 24
.koeln 265 166
.komatsu 9 4
.kosher 0 0
.kp 38 3
.kpmg 4 1
.kpn 4 1
.kr 241382 120692
.krd 71 21
.kred 9 4
.kuokgroup 0 0
.kw 1078 418
.ky 919 553
.kyoto 57 1
.kz 15708 2921
.la 5521 3025
.lacaixa 0 0
.ladbrokes 1 0
.lamborghini 26 9
.lamer 0 0
.lancaster 1 1
.lancia 0 0
.lancome 0 0
.land 6613 4606
.landrover 0 0
.lanxess 2 0
.lasalle 1 0
.lat 582 335
.latino 0 0
.latrobe 3 0
.law 2297 1124
.lawyer 4925 3697
.lb 1373 737
.lc 396 177
.lds 1 0
.lease 639 403
.leclerc 79 18
.lefrak 0 0
.legal 4365 2916
.lego 0 0
.lexus 3 1
.lgbt 68 24
.li 5741 3303
.liaison 1 0
.lidl 12 6
.life 21427 13930
.lifeinsurance 0 0
.lifestyle 0 0
.lighting 2726 1814
.like 10 0
.lilly 0 0
.limited 631 420
.limo 1112 787
.lincoln 0 0
.linde 35 0
.link 17735 9810
.lipsy 0 0
.live 12743 5874
.living 3 0
.lixil 3 1
.lk 6636 3731
.llc 29 23
.loan 5371 2517
.loans 1112 822
.locker 0 0
.locus 3 1
.loft 1 0
.lol 2359 1489
.london 10589 7220
.lotte 1 0
.lotto 1 0
.love 4140 2340
.lpl 0 0
.lplfinancial 0 0
.lr 93 46
.ls 208 96
.lt 93950 56378
.ltd 905 403
.ltda 29 24
.lu 20752 11053
.lundbeck 1 0
.lupin 1 1
.luxe 8 2
.luxury 430 200
.lv 34500 19048
.ly 4222 1613
.ma 7218 4078
.macys 1 0
.madrid 6 2
.maif 2 2
.maison 377 209
.makeup 1 0
.man 17 1
.management 4474 3138
.mango 31 1
.map 7 0
.market 2984 1722
.marketing 7118 4993
.markets 102 50
.marriott 0 0
.marshalls 0 0
.maserati 0 0
.mattel 0 0
.mba 717 473
.mc 829 442
.mckinsey 0 0
.md 6610 3257
.me 275661 205481
.med 8 0
.media 14357 9543
.meet 3 0
.melbourne 141 92
.meme 2 0
.memorial 143 91
.men 2595 729
.menu 140 52
.merckmsd 0 0
.metlife 1 0
.mg 777 317
.mh 6 0
.miami 87 36
.microsoft 29 1
.mil 3680 861
.mini 4 1
.mint 1 0
.mit 6 0
.mitsubishi 1 0
.mk 5882 1498
.ml 8756 3212
.mlb 1 0
.mls 2 0
.mm 781 170
.mma 9 1
.mn 4306 1018
.mo 940 247
.mobi 148527 132421
.mobile 9 0
.mobily 0 0
.moda 1043 596
.moe 1255 468
.moi 1 0
.mom 44 6
.monash 8 3
.money 2936 2140
.monster 9 6
.mopar 0 0
.mormon 1 0
.mortgage 837 610
.moscow 476 51
.moto 0 0
.motorcycles 3 1
.mov 14 0
.movie 668 250
.movistar 1 0
.mp 122 47
.mq 48 17
.mr 210 70
.ms 1813 671
.msd 0 0
.mt 1973 1292
.mtn 1 0
.mtr 0 0
.mu 1785 973
.museum 302 126
.mutual 0 0
.mv 559 336
.mw 416 161
.mx 349969 230643
.my 94138 57728
.mz 878 450
.na 907 508
.nab 0 0
.nadex 1 1
.nagoya 2009 875
.name 35404 21633
.nationwide 0 0
.natura 2 0
.navy 183 126
.nba 1 0
.nc 1217 693
.ne 202 45
.nec 5 1
.net 2918680 1578650
.netbank 0 0
.netflix 3 0
.network 8839 5525
.neustar 20 8
.new 49 1
.newholland 0 0
.news 19025 12561
.next 2 0
.nextdirect 0 0
.nexus 1 0
.nf 605 355
.nfl 0 0
.ng 10990 4370
.ngo 225 130
.nhk 1 1
.ni 1062 604
.nico 8 1
.nike 1 0
.nikon 1 0
.ninja 14014 10600
.nissan 3 2
.nissay 0 0
.nl 597480 422347
.no 298985 186997
.nokia 1 0
.northwesternmutual 0 0
.norton 0 0
.now 25 0
.nowruz 0 0
.nowtv 0 0
.np 3242 1311
.nr 2663 7
.nra 5 1
.nrw 261 145
.ntt 2 0
.nu 40788 25415
.nyc 19830 14117
.nz 325827 199878
.obi 0 0
.observer 19 5
.off 2 0
.office 31 1
.okinawa 1328 462
.olayan 0 0
.olayangroup 0 0
.oldnavy 1 0
.ollo 0 0
.om 1076 271
.omega 2 1
.one 19913 13958
.ong 42 21
.onl 202 95
.online 85456 51482
.onyourside 1 0
.ooo 1033 328
.open 3 0
.oracle 4 0
.orange 11 0
.org 2241890 1252364
.organic 20 8
.origins 0 0
.osaka 196 65
.otsuka 1 1
.ott 1 0
.ovh 15483 8056
.pa 1745 949
.page 103 40
.panasonic 0 0
.paris 10824 6165
.pars 0 0
.partners 2336 1533
.parts 2367 1448
.party 7260 4510
.passagens 0 0
.pay 4 1
.pccw 0 0
.pe 19986 12887
.pet 1068 631
.pf 638 368
.pfizer 0 0
.pg 520 259
.ph 21224 9862
.pharmacy 32 17
.phd 1 0
.philips 4 1
.phone 2 0
.photo 7508 4640
.photography 15237 10326
.photos 8636 5659
.physio 38 25
.piaget 1 1
.pics 3290 2152
.pictet 5 2
.pictures 2948 2074
.pid 0 0
.pin 2 0
.ping 2 1
.pink 2601 1005
.pioneer 4 0
.pizza 1810 1170
.pk 18738 11160
.pl 687150 443340
.place 1450 1010
.play 5 0
.playstation 2 0
.plumbing 1575 1204
.plus 2967 1608
.pm 670 209
.pn 128 38
.pnc 1 0
.pohl 0 0
.poker 97 15
.politie 1 0
.porn 5510 4502
.post 31 12
.pr 560 256
.pramerica 0 0
.praxi 4 0
.press 3108 1819
.prime 2 0
.pro 101285 54877
.prod 30 0
.productions 2016 1383
.prof 0 0
.progressive 0 0
.promo 138 28
.properties 4246 3227
.property 1528 1179
.protection 15 9
.pru 1 0
.prudential 0 0
.ps 2238 698
.pt 158549 94786
.pub 7114 3432
.pw 16855 6772
.pwc 1 0
.py 3600 2219
.qa 2181 722
.qpon 1 2
.quebec 1260 679
.quest 0 0
.qvc 2 0
.racing 696 400
.radio 66 30
.raid 0 0
.re 2384 1181
.read 5 0
.realestate 20 15
.realtor 129 73
.realty 17 10
.recipes 1507 1122
.red 11339 6868
.redstone 4 2
.redumbrella 0 0
.rehab 555 393
.reise 701 348
.reisen 2975 1643
.reit 50 14
.reliance 0 0
.ren 113 10
.rent 862 528
.rentals 4604 3364
.repair 2723 1765
.report 1991 1278
.republican 176 119
.rest 669 386
.restaurant 2472 1576
.review 2487 957
.reviews 6033 4341
.rexroth 0 0
.rich 7 4
.richardli 0 0
.ricoh 5 3
.rightathome 0 0
.ril 0 0
.rio 395 189
.rip 743 485
.rmit 2 1
.ro 283648 175550
.rocher 0 0
.rocks 26262 17677
.rodeo 13 9
.rogers 1 0
.room 2 0
.rs 27729 15527
.rsvp 0 0
.ru 671884 146922
.rugby 3 4
.ruhr 96 58
.run 3092 1642
.rw 652 343
.rwe 2 1
.ryukyu 162 56
.sa 8638 3607
.saarland 2164 1060
.safe 2 0
.safety 0 0
.sakura 1 1
.sale 2783 1627
.salon 51 24
.samsclub 0 0
.samsung 3 0
.sandvik 15 6
.sandvikcoromant 1 0
.sanofi 1 1
.sap 15 1
.sarl 266 156
.sas 2 0
.save 3 0
.saxo 12 3
.sb 110 54
.sbi 9 2
.sbs 0 0
.sc 1699 943
.sca 2 1
.scb 3 1
.schaeffler 0 0
.schmidt 6 3
.scholarships 1 1
.school 3596 2281
.schule 1212 656
.schwarz 2 1
.science 5341 3925
.scjohnson 0 0
.scor 1 1
.scot 5932 3728
.sd 643 136
.se 272318 163066
.search 2 0
.seat 198 97
.secure 1 0
.security 50 23
.seek 2 1
.select 3 0
.sener 15 6
.services 11298 7773
.ses 9 6
.seven 3 1
.sew 1 1
.sex 3512 2875
.sexy 3447 2325
.sfr 0 0
.sg 89051 47869
.sh 3204 967
.shangrila 0 0
.sharp 11 2
.shaw 3 0
.shell 3 0
.shia 0 0
.shiksha 192 102
.shoes 2411 1474
.shop 5608 1919
.shopping 58 20
.shouji 0 0
.show 1925 1101
.showtime 1 0
.shriram 15 10
.si 41821 24037
.silk 1 1
.sina 1 0
.singles 1799 1388
.site 41256 20024
.sj 0 0
.sk 264464 156494
.ski 2572 1417
.skin 1 0
.sky 31 1
.skype 6 1
.sl 251 110
.sling 0 0
.sm 524 273
.smart 5 1
.smile 2 0
.sn 1097 552
.sncf 17 9
.so 996 304
.soccer 749 533
.social 5673 3515
.softbank 2 1
.software 4411 2717
.sohu 1 0
.solar 2775 1999
.solutions 21815 15918
.song 1 0
.sony 6 2
.soy 403 286
.space 27195 16447
.sport 24 15
.spot 7 0
.spreadbetting 7 1
.sr 379 234
.srl 1069 692
.srt 2 0
.ss 1 0
.st 3390 1454
.stada 16 2
.staples 0 0
.star 6 0
.starhub 1 0
.statebank 0 0
.statefarm 1 0
.stc 3 2
.stcgroup 1 1
.stockholm 8 6
.storage 13 3
.store 4186 1301
.stream 1747 363
.studio 5360 3333
.study 295 155
.style 2120 1331
.su 61322 10540
.sucks 2798 2273
.supplies 935 675
.supply 1530 1110
.support 7628 4755
.surf 85 36
.surgery 792 607
.suzuki 3 1
.sv 1854 1125
.swatch 2 1
.swiftcover 0 0
.swiss 5633 2555
.sx 239 105
.sy 581 64
.sydney 2876 2066
.symantec 0 0
.systems 9394 6353
.sz 207 119
.tab 0 0
.taipei 332 38
.talk 1 0
.taobao 1 0
.target 3 0
.tatamotors 2 1
.tatar 19 2
.tattoo 935 573
.tax 2621 1658
.taxi 1862 1111
.tc 2411 1671
.tci 0 0
.td 47 14
.tdk 0 0
.team 3942 2511
.tech 23308 14553
.technology 10700 7626
.tel 8257 6893
.telefonica 9 0
.temasek 1 0
.tennis 567 320
.teva 2 0
.tf 349 105
.tg 178 92
.th 30372 9954
.thd 1 0
.theater 484 262
.theatre 17 6
.tiaa 0 0
.tickets 313 165
.tienda 1008 572
.tiffany 1 0
.tips 14694 10409
.tires 285 177
.tirol 223 172
.tj 913 110
.tjmaxx 0 0
.tjx 0 0
.tk 57924 36329
.tkmaxx 0 0
.tl 7734 5990
.tm 480 112
.tmall 1 0
.tn 4361 1880
.to 11373 3850
.today 21633 15057
.tokyo 21160 9514
.tools 3902 2374
.top 13223 2897
.toray 7 3
.toshiba 3 1
.total 7 2
.tours 2411 1629
.town 1320 944
.toyota 4 1
.toys 1684 1095
.tr 223035 152072
.trade 1338 605
.trading 113 60
.training 7642 5225
.travel 4816 2303
.travelchannel 0 0
.travelers 0 0
.travelersinsurance 0 0
.trust 5 1
.trv 2 0
.tt 919 417
.tube 165 37
.tui 1 1
.tunes 0 0
.tushu 0 0
.tv 223712 144419
.tvs 0 0
.tw 195314 49879
.tz 2434 1393
.ua 248130 54581
.ubank 0 0
.ubs 1 0
.uconnect 0 0
.ug 1664 872
.uk 1041962 600819
.unicom 0 0
.university 2222 1412
.uno 1682 1264
.uol 37 1
.ups 0 0
.us 362974 271719
.uy 12788 8842
.uz 4789 621
.va 238 50
.vacations 1724 1227
.vana 0 0
.vanguard 4 0
.vc 2294 986
.ve 9158 5371
.vegas 4496 3115
.ventures 3493 2572
.verisign 0 0
.versicherung 14 14
.vet 2169 1420
.vg 1593 1068
.vi 158 85
.viajes 530 299
.video 5111 3016
.vig 0 0
.viking 0 0
.villas 871 586
.vin 2281 1284
.vip 2034 422
.virgin 3 1
.visa 0 0
.vision 2347 1572
.vistaprint 2 1
.viva 1 1
.vivo 2 0
.vlaanderen 69 34
.vn 114281 23775
.vodka 12 8
.volkswagen 0 0
.volvo 1 0
.vote 528 343
.voting 3 1
.voto 85 26
.voyage 1240 835
.vu 1567 581
.vuelos 0 0
.wales 5624 3902
.walmart 4 0
.walter 3 1
.wang 9183 4748
.wanggou 0 0
.warman 0 0
.watch 2555 1434
.watches 1 1
.weather 1 0
.weatherchannel 1 0
.webcam 643 262
.weber 47 21
.website 30371 19469
.wed 6 6
.wedding 1987 1265
.weibo 1 0
.weir 72 1
.wf 145 74
.whoswho 2 1
.wien 3600 1960
.wiki 5183 3098
.williamhill 6 3
.win 21935 10278
.windows 2 1
.wine 4599 2934
.winners 0 0
.wme 1 1
.wolterskluwer 0 0
.woodside 2 0
.work 2904 749
.works 5315 3590
.world 31880 13729
.wow 6 0
.ws 133980 122131
.wtc 1 1
.wtf 3382 2357
.xbox 13 1
.xerox 0 0
.xfinity 0 0
.xihuan 0 0
.xin 6926 4789
.xn--11b4c3d 0 0
.xn--1ck2e1b 0 0
.xn--1qqw23a 0 0
.xn--2scrj9c 0 0
.xn--30rr7y 0 0
.xn--3bst00m 0 0
.xn--3ds443g 3 0
.xn--3e0b707e 51 18
.xn--3hcrj9c 0 0
.xn--3oq18vl8pn36a 0 0
.xn--3pxu8k 0 0
.xn--42c2d9a 0 0
.xn--45br5cyl 0 0
.xn--45brj9c 1 0
.xn--45q11c 2 0
.xn--4gbrim 1 0
.xn--54b7fta0cc 3 0
.xn--55qw42g 0 0
.xn--55qx5d 0 1
.xn--5su34j936bgsg 0 0
.xn--5tzm5g 0 0
.xn--6frz82g 329 114
.xn--6qq986b3xl 7 0
.xn--80adxhks 160 7
.xn--80ao21a 2 0
.xn--80aqecdr1a 0 0
.xn--80asehdb 857 138
.xn--80aswg 324 58
.xn--8y0a063a 0 0
.xn--90a3ac 12 2
.xn--90ae 24 1
.xn--90ais 149 2
.xn--9dbq2a 1 0
.xn--9et52u 0 0
.xn--9krt00a 0 0
.xn--b4w605ferd 1 0
.xn--bck1b9a5dre4c 0 0
.xn--c1avg 20 2
.xn--c2br7g 0 0
.xn--cck2b3b 0 0
.xn--cg4bki 0 0
.xn--clchc0ea0b2g2a9gcd 0 0
.xn--czr694b 1 1
.xn--czrs0t 0 0
.xn--czru2d 3 0
.xn--d1acj3b 24 0
.xn--d1alf 0 0
.xn--e1a4c 6 0
.xn--eckvdtc9d 0 0
.xn--efvy88h 0 0
.xn--estv75g 1 1
.xn--fct429k 0 0
.xn--fhbei 0 0
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.xn--fiq64b 0 0
.xn--fiqs8s 1220 44
.xn--fiqz9s 0 0
.xn--fjq720a 0 0
.xn--flw351e 1 0
.xn--fpcrj9c3d 0 1
.xn--fzc2c9e2c 1 0
.xn--fzys8d69uvgm 0 0
.xn--g2xx48c 0 0
.xn--gckr3f0f 0 0
.xn--gecrj9c 0 0
.xn--gk3at1e 0 0
.xn--h2breg3eve 0 0
.xn--h2brj9c 7 1
.xn--h2brj9c8c 0 0
.xn--hxt814e 59 27
.xn--i1b6b1a6a2e 0 0
.xn--imr513n 0 0
.xn--io0a7i 1 0
.xn--j1aef 7 0
.xn--j1amh 239 5
.xn--j6w193g 3 1
.xn--jlq61u9w7b 0 0
.xn--jvr189m 0 0
.xn--kcrx77d1x4a 1 1
.xn--kprw13d 0 0
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.xn--kpu716f 0 0
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.xn--l1acc 1 1
.xn--lgbbat1ad8j 2 0
.xn--mgb9awbf 0 0
.xn--mgba3a3ejt 2 1
.xn--mgba3a4f16a 1 0
.xn--mgba7c0bbn0a 0 0
.xn--mgbaakc7dvf 0 0
.xn--mgbaam7a8h 5 1
.xn--mgbab2bd 101 19
.xn--mgbah1a3hjkrd 0 0
.xn--mgbai9azgqp6j 0 0
.xn--mgbayh7gpa 0 0
.xn--mgbb9fbpob 0 0
.xn--mgbbh1a 0 0
.xn--mgbbh1a71e 0 0
.xn--mgbc0a9azcg 0 0
.xn--mgbca7dzdo 0 0
.xn--mgberp4a5d4ar 0 0
.xn--mgbgu82a 0 0
.xn--mgbi4ecexp 0 0
.xn--mgbpl2fh 0 0
.xn--mgbt3dhd 0 0
.xn--mgbtx2b 0 0
.xn--mgbx4cd0ab 0 0
.xn--mix891f 0 0
.xn--mk1bu44c 6 0
.xn--mxtq1m 0 0
.xn--ngbc5azd 7 0
.xn--ngbe9e0a 0 0
.xn--ngbrx 0 0
.xn--node 2 0
.xn--nqv7f 0 0
.xn--nqv7fs00ema 0 0
.xn--nyqy26a 4 4
.xn--o3cw4h 9 1
.xn--ogbpf8fl 0 0
.xn--otu796d 0 0
.xn--p1acf 299 43
.xn--p1ai 299734 44067
.xn--pbt977c 0 0
.xn--pgbs0dh 2 0
.xn--pssy2u 0 0
.xn--q9jyb4c 287 158
.xn--qcka1pmc 1 0
.xn--qxam 9 2
.xn--rhqv96g 1 0
.xn--rovu88b 0 0
.xn--rvc1e0am3e 0 0
.xn--s9brj9c 0 0
.xn--ses554g 0 0
.xn--t60b56a 2 0
.xn--tckwe 85 26
.xn--tiq49xqyj 0 0
.xn--unup4y 1 0
.xn--vermgensberater-ctb 1 1
.xn--vermgensberatung-pwb 1 1
.xn--vhquv 0 0
.xn--vuq861b 3 1
.xn--w4r85el8fhu5dnra 0 0
.xn--w4rs40l 0 0
.xn--wgbh1c 2 0
.xn--wgbl6a 2 1
.xn--xhq521b 5 0
.xn--xkc2al3hye2a 0 0
.xn--xkc2dl3a5ee0h 0 0
.xn--y9a3aq 0 0
.xn--yfro4i67o 0 0
.xn--ygbi2ammx 0 0
.xn--zfr164b 3 2
.xxx 89175 3330
.xyz 289147 80131
.yachts 1 1
.yahoo 11 0
.yamaxun 1 1
.yandex 14 1
.ye 197 55
.yodobashi 1 1
.yoga 2964 2084
.yokohama 1481 684
.you 31 0
.youtube 7 0
.yt 214 77
.yun 0 0
.za 295219 203059
.zappos 1 1
.zara 2 0
.zero 3 0
.zip 63 0
.zm 571 295
.zone 7292 4840
.zuerich 1 1
.zw 1434 730
Total 44202501 23848767

Silica Gel Packet Websites (Plus Favorite Packets)

For ages I’ve run websites that are image galleries of silica gel packets. You could say that I’m a pioneer in the field of silica gel packet collecting. It all started when a coworker gave me a silica gel packet with the word “candy” written on it.

In 2009, I bought the domain do-not-eat.com [Archive.org September 2010]. It was just a simple photo gallery with a dozen or so packets, but it managed to get some organic traffic. I sold the domain for something like $30 and the new owner kept the site up for a year or two.

In 2012, I bought the domain silica-gel.org. I built a Django site and added a bunch of packets, also linked by ink color, language, and manufacturer. I ad a packet now and then as I discover new and different ones.

Silica-Gel.org Website Logo

 

 

 

These are my favorite packets.

This one has a nice transparent blue flower that lets you see the silica gel balls.

This one has a phenomenal amount of text and has nice fonts and imagery.

I like this one just because it is orange. There are a few nice orange packets, especially ones from Topcod.

This is another nice orange packet and I enjoy the skull and crossbones.

That’s it for the highlights of my silica gel packet collection.

If you’d like to download a copy of the silica-gel.org website (including archived images), it’s available as open source on GitHub.

RevenueHits Didn’t Work For me

I’ve had to cut short another one of the alternative advertiser experiments that I’ve been running on WbSrch. This time it’s RevenueHits.

This one isn’t causing malware warnings, but it made my site unusable if I had ad blocking turned off. There were popup windows, auto-navigation, and tabs opening without my permission. None of this is OK.

It’s not much of a loss – I didn’t earn anything at all from them during the brief experiment. During the short test, I had 433 impressions, 5 clicks (1.155%), and $0.00 in revenue. Not even a fraction of a penny – eCPM was $0.00 across the board.

The experiment continues with Adcash, Bidvertiser, Chitika, and Adsterra remaining.

Yllix Didn’t Work For Me

I’ve been experimenting with advertising providers on WbSrch to find one (or more) that works well.

Among the half dozen or so I was testing is Yllix.

Unfortunately, they’re causing my site to get malware warnings from Chrome. I’m sure Google is especially vigilant with flagging a competing ad service as malicious, so I’m dropping them from the test.

During the (shortened) test, I had 527 impressions, 4 clicks, and $0.01 in revenue, so it’s unlikely that they’d work out anyhow.

2018 Is The Year That Twitter Ceases To Be Relevant

2018 is the year that Twitter ceases to be relevant.

It’s already stopped being relevant for me. I’ve stopped using it, and have deleted all of my tweets.

As a user, it’s just not worth it. It’s a miserable experience, made much worse by the userbase being made up primarily of Russian bots posing as MAGA idiots, actual alt-right MAGA idiots, and a small kernel of real people saying intelligent things that are drowned out by noise.

I’ve done (and still do) a lot of advertising on the web. For all of the different things I’ve been into, the worst ROI has consistently been via Twitter. Maybe some business types are viable via their ad platform, but none I’ve been involved in have been. It’s been a total waste of money. Mailing postcards would be a better value.

Most of the people I know in meatspace with accounts have stopped using it long ago. Some stopped in 2015, some in 2016, some in 2017. I can name maybe five people who use it regularly, and some of them echo their tweets to Facebook. I don’t have a huge circle of friends, but compare that to about 140 on Facebook with about 40% of them being active (50 or so people) and the order of magnitude population reduction makes it far less interesting. Facebook has its own problems, but it still manages to be relevant, unlike Twitter.

Even though Twitter is garbage to me, maybe it isn’t garbage to everyone else.

Nope.

There hasn’t been much recent coverage that I can find with about 15 seconds of effort, but these from last year don’t paint a rosy picture:

Twitter is now losing users in the U.S
http://money.cnn.com/2017/07/27/technology/business/twitter-earnings/index.html

Twitter revenues decline for first time as advertising falls away
https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2017/apr/26/twitter-revenues-fall-first-quarter-results-advertising

Library of Congress Gives Up Collecting All Tweets Because Twitter Is Garbage
https://gizmodo.com/library-of-congress-gives-up-on-twitter-because-twitter-1821581190

When Twitter finally dies, nearly nothing of value will be lost.

And if it doesn’t die, why care?

Six Weeks of RCRDList – Screwups and Successes and More Screwups

On the first of the year I took over as curator of the RCRDList music discovery email list. It was created by my friend Zoe and she doesn’t have the time to maintain it because she’s in grad school. It’s presumably a temporary takeover, with me assuming she’ll want it back when school’s over, but we haven’t figured that out yet.

It was a bit of a rough start. I did well enough picking music, but there were a few bad links or mis-sized images here and there, but nothing terrible. It was obvious that I misunderestimated the phenomenal amount of work she put into it.

I also rewrote the MusicSrch search engine to fix a bunch of broken things and add some services that weren’t in yet but would be useful for RCRDList. That has been very helpful and has saved me a lot of time.

Then I got into a bit of a flow and managed to get a few days ahead fairly consistently. That’s how Zoe used to manage it — create a buffer big enough to absorb the fluctuations of day-to-day life. I think she was usually pretty far ahead, certainly more than two or three days.

Then life happened. My band Emergency Brunch played 3 live shows in January, with two in the same week. And my old band from 2004, Dr. Kilpatient, reunited for a brief show because the third member was in town. And, of course, those things require time and practice and hauling stuff all over the place, made even more complicated by riding public transit. Things became even more difficult as a wave of the winter blues overtook me and made me lazy/distracted/befuckited for a week or so.

Not only did I miss a day, I missed a few. And some weeklies. A whole group of very important people was left in the dark.

Zoe, I failed to feed your baby. More than once. I’m sorry. I will do better.

I also haven’t spent enough effort on descriptions and headlines. In the mad rush to get emails out, many of the descriptions were pretty uncreative. It was enough that RCRDList friend Trixie pointed that out on Twitter. Thank you for caring enough to say that, Trixie. You’re absolutely right.

I thought about asking for help. And I might at some point, especially for the genres that I find hard to listen to — country and folk. The trouble is that getting someone new up to speed on the selection and editing criteria would be a serious time investment on its own. RCRDList is far more detailed than “pick and random thing and email it”. But, even having help with just the selecting would make life easier. I listen to about 4 hours of music for every band that’s featured, and finding time for that is not always easy. The day job gives me some time to listen while I work most days, at least.

As I write this, I’m a day ahead and working on the next and I have enough time to finish Monday’s weekly. There are problems with the workflow that I need to solve, with the most obvious being that I have to enter every URL twice — once for the dailies and once again for the weeklies. I can copy and paste from the daily emails, but it’s still a manual process. The thing with computers is that you should only ever have to enter a piece of data once. Anything else is extra work. I have an idea that involves saving links from a MusicSrch search and using them to generate (at least partially) a daily email and save those links toward a weekly, but I’m sure I’ll need to do a significant template redesign and many hours of codemonkeying to make it work, but it will pay for itself in time savings if I do.

I’ve also done some work toward growing the list.

It’s the same amount of work whether an email going to 1500 people or 15,000. As it is, when a band finds out they’ve been featured it’s more of a morale boost than anything that really moves the needle for them. You can’t pay the rent by selling an extra 1-2 copies of an album. I’d love for it to make a meaningful difference for a band to be featured by RCRDList. Sometimes it does. With more than 1000 features by now, the odds are good that at least one musician who was ready to give up decided to keep going because they were on the list. I’d really like it to make a meaningful difference every time an email went out.

I used a Facebook ad to grow the following there a little. It wasn’t much, just enough to change the “seen by 3 people” post average to “seen by 5 people”. It’s still a tiny following — less than 100 people. It was enough to figure out how much it costs to grow the audience. 76 cents per like with a really basic ad. If I had a better ad it would be a little less, but that still means increasing the reach is no small (or cheap) task.

Twitter has also grown a little. I made it official policy to follow a featured band. Sometimes they follow back. It’s also useful for the “have we already featured them?” check, and it might also be neat to do a “where are they now” for featured bands in the future.

So far the thing that has made the biggest impact for the smallest expense is Project Wonderful. It’s an ad network that lets you target specific sites with specific bids. It doesn’t have that many music sites in the network since it’s geared more toward webcomics, but there are a few that have been really effective for growing the list. It’s grown by about 3% in the past month. That’s not amazing, but the ability to hypertarget ads means that each new subscriber costs less than 10 cents to add. I started by using a terrible ad that I made and then switched to a few nice ones made by a talented graphic designer in Venezuela. I always hate contributing to the race to the bottom in wages that a place like Fiverr causes, but the alternative would be my horrible programmer art, which probably has a greater long-term negative effect on the world.

Even though RCRDList includes some affiliate links, during its lifetime it has still made less in commissions than I’ve spent on ad experiments in the past six weeks. That’s OK. Money isn’t the point of this thing. It’d just be a nice side-effect if it took off. Even if it is a labor of love, nobody wants to work for free if they don’t have to.

I’ll never understand people who are bored. My problem is and always will be running out of day.

MusicSrch Reboot

Early in 2016 I bought the source code for a music search site from a fella in Slovenia and put it under the umbrella of the WbSrch search engine.

When WbSrch shut down later in 2016, it was left in limbo. It was still running through 2017, but ignored. And sometimes the service crashed and wouldn’t be started back up for a while. Like, sometimes even months.

When I started curating for RCRDList, it became something that I wanted to use again. But it was pretty broken, and I never really got around to learning Ruby. So I spent a long weekend and a few evenings rewriting it in Python and JavaScript.

It doesn’t search all of the same services that it used to, but it searches more of them now, especially more of the mainstream services. There are a few more things I’d like to add, but it already does more than the original version did. I also don’t have to worry about the service crashing because it’s a Python app, and I know how to keep those running consistently.

Try it out at:

https://musicsrch.com

 

FreeWaveSamples: DMCA Response Period Expired, Samples Restored

This is an update to a previous post about a DMCA request frivolously filed by Roland Corporation against freewavesamples.com.

I sent a DMCA counter-notice to my ISP, Linode, and they forwarded it to Roland.

14 days (10 business days passed) and Roland did not respond.

Yesterday Linode contacted me to let me know I was free to put the content back up, so I today I did.

For reference, these are the URLs where samples have been restored:

http://freewavesamples.com/roland-d-20-kick
http://freewavesamples.com/roland-jd-990-pizzicato-strings-c4
http://freewavesamples.com/roland-d-20-snare
http://freewavesamples.com/roland-gr1-orchestra-hit-c5
http://freewavesamples.com/roland-gr1-trumpet-c5

It’s no surprise that there was no response from Roland regarding my counter-notice. I’m sure the badly-written IP enforcement bot they’re using isn’t advanced enough to handle that sort of thing.

I will not consider the manner closed until I hear from a real Human at Roland. They could continue to harass me, and that is why I haven’t removed the “Free Wave Samples Is In Danger” banner text from the website.

Roland: Wrong But Persistent

This is an update to the unsubstantiated legal threat I received from Roland a few weeks ago.

My ISP, Linode, was reviewing the situation and still hadn’t come to a decision (I suspect they wrote to the email address of the sender and failed to receive a reply, as I did). However, today they received a DMCA takedown notice.

— BEGIN NOTICE —

Dear Sir/ Madam,

I, the undersigned, state the following:

1) I am the legal representative authorized to act on behalf of Roland Corporation, of certain exclusive intellectual property rights (“Roland Corporation”);

2) I attest, under penalty of perjury, that I have a good faith belief that

freewavesamples.com
http://freewavesamples.com/roland-d-20-kick
http://freewavesamples.com/roland-jd-990-pizzicato-strings-c4
http://freewavesamples.com/roland-d-20-snare
http://freewavesamples.com/roland-gr1-orchestra-hit-c5
http://freewavesamples.com/roland-gr1-trumpet-c5

use Roland Corporation’s intellectual property in the content without authorization. This use falsely suggests Roland Corporation’s sponsorship or endorsement of the website and violates Roland Corporation’s exclusive rights;

3) Roland Corporation represents that use of the material is not authorized by the copyright owner, its agent, or the law;

4) Based upon information at its disposal on freewavesamples.com, we believe that the statements in this notice are accurate and correctly describe the infringing nature and status of the Infringing Material;

5) I understand that, pursuant to 17 U.S.C. § 512(f), any person who knowingly materially misrepresents that material or activity is infringing may be liable for damages, including costs and attorneys’ fees.

The reasons that the domains named above must be suspended are as follows:

a) Offer(s) a counterfeit or otherwise unauthorized item for sale that violates the IP Owner’s trademarks and/or copyrights.
b) Misuses the IP Owner’s brand name, trademarks and/or copyright.
c) Uses a copyrighted image without authorization from the IP Owner.

The reported website(s), and by consequence the infringing content, is accessible globally, and is protected under the Berne Convention, the protection of which extends to 168 countries (full list here: http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ShowResults.jsp?lang=en&treaty_id=15).

We are providing you this letter of notification pursuant to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act 17 USC§512(c) to make you aware of material on its network or system that infringes the exclusive copyrights of Roland Corporation.

Attempts to resolve this issue with the Registrant have been unsuccessful. We seek your help in removing the infringing content. Please take reasonable and prompt steps to investigate and respond appropriately to this report of abuse commensurate to your commitment to addressing abuse as outlined in your terms of service and commensurate to your obligation under relevant law.

We may be contacted at the email address below.

Sincerely,

brandprotection@rolandipr.com

— END NOTICE —

I do not agree with Roland’s claims and do not believe they would win a court challenge.

This content on freewavesamples.com does *not* violate Roland’s copyright, nor Roland’s trademark. The trademark issue is explained in this earlier post. Here I address the copyright (Linode thought that was their concern, but to me that letter still reads as a trademark threat).

The samples posted on freewavesamples.com are not samples that were created by Roland. They are sounds that I played on and recorded from the Roland synthesizers that I own, recorded at a specific pitch (C in the best octave for the patch, usually), edited and denoised, normalized, etc. Some of them sound better than the original instrument (particularly in the case of some of the noisy 1980’s synths).

This is a very important difference.

In buying an instrument, you also buy the right to do whatever you like with recordings of sounds *from* that instrument. If this were not the case, every song recorded using a sound from a Roland synthesizer would be in violation and the music industry would fall apart.

This is why there is a thriving sample pack industry, with retailers selling CDs, DVDs, and downloads of samples from various synthesizers and drum machines. If you want all of the quality, flexibility, programmability, and versatility of the original instrument you buy the instrument. If you just want access to some of the preset sounds, you buy the sample pack. You don’t get much value from a sample pack, though – the presets are the least interesting part of an instrument, and using them in a song makes you sound unoriginal and uncreative. In addition, the pitch shifting involved in transposing a single-note sample to other pitches loses any articulation associated with that sound and introduces artifacts and aliasing that makes it sound less realistic the farther you go from the recorded pitch.

This is also true for other instruments. You can buy a guitar and get all of the flexibility that comes with owning an expressive instrument with hundreds of years of design history behind it. Or you can buy a sample CD with a few notes and sounds that you’ll be hard-pressed to make sound like a real, live version of the instrument on a recording.

If these were binary dumps of the actual samples in the synthesizer’s ROM, this *would* be in violation of Roland’s copyright, assuming the samples in that particular synthesizer are legitimately copyrighted. That has been a problem for emulator developers, such as the MT-32 emulation project. (references HERE, HERE, HERE, and HERE). I was aware of that case before ever starting the site, which is why I have not taken binary dumps of any samples. Interestingly enough, the MT-32’s samples were not copyrighted, and things turned out favorably for the emulator.

However, worrying about this stuff makes me tired. And at this point thinking about Roland fills me with disgust. I’m not sure I even want to mention them on my site, freely advertising and promoting their brand and increasing their name recognition when I get nothing for it (these are FREE downloads, for pete’s sake!).

For now I’m taking the mentioned Roland samples down and filing a counter-notice to their DMCA request. If they don’t respond in 14 days, which I doubt they will, then I may put them back up. If I can stomach it. I’ve also emailed the EFF to ask for their opinion since they were involved in the original MT-32 emulator case.

I have not taken ALL of the Roland samples down. Only the ones mentioned in their complaint. Based on the outcome of this dispute, I’ll either remove everything from Roland (there’s lots more), or keep them all up.

There is an update to this situation.

Free Wave Samples Is in Danger

Ten years ago I created freewavesamples.com because there was a shortage of free high-quality samples online. Specifically, the type of samples that would be useful for making music with samplers and trackers. I recorded sounds from my large collection of synthesizers (and some other instruments), a mix of preset patches and custom patches that I’ve created.

Now, after a decade of giving away samples without any issues, the site is under threat from Roland. A trademark threat of all things.

This is an unsolicited email I received:

— BEGIN MESSAGE —

To Whom It May Concern:

I am writing on behalf of the IP Department for Roland Corporation and its division regarding your infringement of Roland intellectual property rights. As I am sure you know, Roland Corporation is a leading manufacturer and distributor of electronic musical instruments, including keyboards and synthesizers, guitar products, electronic percussion, digital recording equipment, amplifiers, audio processors, and multimedia products. With more than 40 years of musical instrument development, Roland sets the standard in music technology for the world to follow. For more information, visit http://www.Roland.com/global/.

In connection to Roland Corporation’s proprietary rights over its famous trademark we are notifying you of the following:

Roland Corporation has recently learned that the trademark ROLAND appears as a metatag, keyword, visible or hidden text on the web site(s) located at the below listed URL(s) without having obtained prior written authorization from Roland Corporation. This practice infringes upon the exclusive intellectual property rights of Roland Corporation.

http://freewavesamples.com/roland-d-20-kick
http://freewavesamples.com/roland-jd-990-pizzicato-strings-c4
http://freewavesamples.com/roland-d-20-snare
http://freewavesamples.com/roland-gr1-orchestra-hit-c5
http://freewavesamples.com/roland-gr1-trumpet-c5

As a trademark owner, Roland Corporation is obligated to enforce its rights by taking action to ensure that others do not use its trademarks without permission. Unauthorized use of the trademark(s) could create a likelihood of confusion with Roland Corporation’s trademark as to the source, sponsorship, affiliation, or endorsement of your web site(s), online location(s), products or services.

In light of the above, we request that you respond to this e-mail within ten (10) days, informing us whether you have obtained rights from Roland Corporation to use the trademark(s). If so, please provide us with details as to who granted you such rights and when. If not, please remove all metatags, keywords, visible or hidden texts including trademark(s) presently appearing on the above-cited web site(s) and any other web site(s), or draw this issue to the attention of the appropriate person(s).

Thank you in advance for your anticipated cooperation in this matter.

Sincerely,

Roland Corporation
brandprotection@rolandipr.com

— END MESSAGE —

This looks like the type of message that is generated by an automated IP enforcement bot — the kind of thing that crawls the web and automatically bothers people when it sees certain keywords. I sincerely doubt that a Human was involved in sending it at all.

Here’s why their claims are not valid:

1. There is no possibility of brand confusion because the mentions of Roland on the site are NOT a competing product. It’s THEM that I’m talking about when I use the word Roland. These are samples recorded from my Roland synthesizers and I have every right to say where they came from. That is Fair Use.
2. They are using an overly broad interpretation of trademark.
3. There are no products for sale on the site.
4. You don’t get to decide what keywords someone uses in their meta tags. That’s not covered by trademark, and it’s pointless to even care since search engines don’t even use keyword meta tags anymore.
5. If this was a problem, Roland should have objected long ago. As this capture from The Wayback Machine on May 5, 2007 shows, I’ve been offering Roland samples for more than ten years (including the JD-990 sample that is in their list of URLs). It has been a popular site for a long time, and I believe it was in 2008 that it first cracked the Alexa Top Million (it’s been the 200-250k range in recent months).

In any case, I replied to their email explaining that their claims were not valid in this case. Heard nothing back. Received the same email again a week later. Replied with the same answer. Heard nothing back.

A week or so later, my ISP notified me that it received the same email and said that I needed to remove the content or my server would be “limited”. I contested it and I’m still waiting to hear back from their “trust and safety” department. One thing I will definitely give Linode — their customer service is quite good, and they look into things rather than making unilateral decisions. I experienced this firsthand a few years back when a malware scanner came up with some false positives for some apps I had posted on the Zeta Centauri website.

One of six things will probably happen here:

1. A real Human at Roland will look at this and realize it’s silly and drop it.
2. I’ll end up removing the Roland content from the site under duress, even though they have no right to force me to not mention them. And, of course, I’ll replace it with a very unflattering note explaining why it was removed.
3. I’ll change ISPs. This is unlikely because the same thing will probably just happen again.
4. I’ll shut down the site. This isn’t too likely, but it is possible. It’s does require time and energy to maintain, and even though it gets a lot of traffic, the Google ads on the site earn only slightly more than the hosting costs. Enough to buy an inexpensive synth once a year (and then record more samples from it).
5. I’ll fight it in court and win. This isn’t too likely because it’s not worth the time, money, and energy. If I were earning a living from the site, that might be a different story (this is just a hobby, not a company). But, I also hate bullying, so it might be worth the fight, especially since trademark bullies are some of the worst kind of bullies.

I’ve spent a LOT of money on Roland audio equipment over the last 20 years (probably $20k total). Result #1 is the only thing that will keep me buying and using Roland gear.

If you’d like to keep freewavesamples.com online, please contact Roland and let them know they should leave me alone.

And for the love of all that is good, please don’t use (or let your company use) shoddy shotgun-blast-approach automated IP protection bots. A number of companies sell them, and none of them are very good. Down with Barratry bots.

There is an Update to this situation.

WbSrch Acquires Music Search Engine

Reprint of a press release originally published on PRWeb at https://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/03/prweb13295857.htm.

WbSrch has purchased the music search engine Snagr.io for an undisclosed sum and has rebranded it as MusicSrch.com.

The search engine, originally developed by Oto Brglez from Slovenia, searches a selection of popular social media and music sites such as Spotify, Tidal, Musicbrainz, and Twitter for the online presences of a band, DJ, or musician.

WbSrch founder Jason Champion had this to say about the purchase:

“Oto created a great, fast, responsive site but didn’t have the time, people, or resources to grow its audience. With this purchase, we hope to continue to expand on the great foundation that he created.

The addition of music search to our existing search capabilities will help us increase our reach online and we look forward to sharing the joy of discovering new music with a larger audience.”

The music search site is currently live at http://musicsrch.com.

WbSrch is a general-purpose search engine based in Portland, OR, that was created in 2013 and launched in 2014. It is online at https://wbsrch.com.

WbSrch Launches New WbBrowse Web Browser for Windows, Mac, and Linux

Reprint of a press release originally published on PRWeb at https://www.prweb.com/releases/2016/01/prweb13179551.htm.

The independent search engine WbSrch just launched a new desktop web browser called WbBrowse.

WbBrowse supports tabbed browsing, is free, runs on Windows, Mac, and Linux, and is available at http://wbbrowse.com

“The major search engines all have their own browsers. It’s a good way for new users to discover your service, and an easy way to for them to return to it later. Even though the first release of WbBrowse doesn’t have all of the features of the top browsers yet, we think it’s pretty good for a 1.0 release.”

WbSrch also has OpenSearch plugins that can be added to any OpenSearch-capable browser, such as Firefox or Internet Explorer.

WbSrch is a general-purpose search engine based in Portland, OR, that was created in 2013 and launched in 2014.

Goodbye Sociable Plugin

I disabled the “Sociable” plugin because it was littering every post with a ton of buttons that just advertised social media sites. You don’t need to see that crap and neither do I. Time has proven that social media is almost entirely valueless anyhow. In ten years nobody will even remember that there was a Google plus.

Back Online

The Basternae site is back online after being gone for six months.   The MUD is also back online at basternae.org port 4502.

Tiu Has Killed The Dragon

Brave Tiu was one of the first adventurers to sally forth on the quest to kill the dragon in Dragon Wilds.

A whole village worth of corpses and some bugfixes later, the dragon lies dead at his feet.  Congratulations, Tiu, on being the first one to win the game.

New Game: Dragon Wilds

http://dragonwilds.com

I built this oldschool over-the-2400-baud-modem game in my spare time over the past week using Python and Django (it’s about 500 lines of source code, 500 lines of HTML templates). I don’t know whether I’m going to spend more time on it, but it was fun to build and a nice break from the to-complex-to-work-on-with-the-brainpower-I-have-left-after-work state Basternae 3 is in. If people like it I’ll probably make more of them or improve the existing game. First time I’ve done a web-only game.

Let me know if you can break it. As can be expected, there’s really not that much depth to it and you may well get tired of it quickly.

Opera: My New Favorite Browser

For the longest time Firefox has been my favorite browser, with Internet Explorer second.  Firefox was the most user-friendly and where FF didn’t work very well or crashed, IE was always a reliable fallback.  I don’t mean IE6.  That was an exploding turd.

Other than consuming more memory and CPU, over the past few years Firefox hasn’t really improved at all.  It hasn’t become more user-friendly, more stable, or more fun to use.  That’s not really a problem — it’s always been perfectly usable — but it’s left room for other browsers to pass them up.

Well, not everyone is as inept as the developers of Konqueror.  Doing some memory and CPU benchmarking for work led me to try a few browsers I hadn’t spent any time with before — Opera, Safari, Seamonkey, Aurora, Epiphany, etc.  For the most part they were just your average Webkit-based or Gecko-based cookie-cutter browsers without much going for them.  Except Opera.

I only spent a little while with it, but for the purposes of the project I was working on, it was the most consistent across operating systems (Linux, Windows, MacOS), most consistently standards-compliant , and most reliable.  I used it enough that I got used to the interface, which is nice because it just gets the hell out of the way and leaves plenty of room for the sites its displaying.  Even better, the behavior and options (open in new tab vs. open in new background tab, search bar has ‘paste and go’ option, etc.) cater precisely to the way I want to use the web.

I really like the Internet Explorer 9 beta and it’s better than any IE yet, but it doesn’t make the greatest use of screen real estate.

I’m sold on Opera.  I’ve made it my primary because it’s the best choice if you use multiple operating systems.

Fun With XSL

One of the good things about having data stored in XML files is that you can use XSL stylesheets (templates) to format the data into HTML.

I created two basic templates, one for races and one for classes, and linked them to the data files used by the MUD. They don’t have any fancy formatting, but they do display the data in a Human-able format.

The result is that the class and race webpages link to the data files being used by the MUD. This means that you can view info about each race and class exactly as it’s being loaded. If we change something in the data file, such as adding a new spell or adjusting a race’s dexterity, the web page that is displayed is updated automagically.

This means that the pages for each race/class will essentially maintain themselves. Neat, eh?

Stories And Lore

Basternae 1 and 2 had a huge number of total hours played.  Lots of players rose to prominence and some became pretty much legendary.  With all that adventure

If anyone wants to write up any fairy tales, legends, or lore of the past based on previous incarnations of Basternae and either characters of their own, past immortals, or others they knew of, it might be a fun thing to  post on the website as backstory or just general world lore (i.e. something along the lines of ‘St. Daeron and the Dragon’.  In fact, if someone feels so inclined to write any sort of back story beyond ‘everyone kills everyone’, they’re certainly welcome (and encouraged) to.

The world of Basternae 3 takes place somewhere between a few hundred and a few thousand years in the future after Basternae 2.  Among other things, the Flind race has faded out and have been overtaken by their more successful Gnoll cousins and the Githyanki have hunted the Githzerai nearly to extinction.  The world has been reformed somewhat, with rising water levels reshaping or destroying many of the land masses of the past (nobody has explained why they rose yet — global warming, superheating from a major war, bombardment by meteors, change in the planet’s orbit, who knows?).  The Artifacts have all been destroyed or reclaimed by the gods.

Nobody has really ever said anything about the major religions of the world, the number of moons, what the climate is like.  I could probably come up with something, but it would be more fun to have your input.