Alphabetical Internet Ownership

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13 Oct 2016

A is for ALEXA.com (ranking in parenthesis) because it’s traffic we cite, although I don’t know how accurate it is. We could google it.

B is for BAIDU.com (4th) because they power the majority of China’s 4b monthly search queries, and that’s just the beginning of their business.

C is for CNN.com (89th) because the news is the news of the owner’s interest and seeing a site for what it is isn’t popular.

D is for DROPBOX.com (72nd) because digital storage will forever be a challenge and starting a site with the “duh” sound isn’t popular.

E is for EBAY.com (32nd) because they convinced the average citizen they could make money on the internet. They used to rank much higher.

F is for FACEBOOK.com (3rd) because it’s the back-hole that controls a billion identities on the internet.

G is for GOOGLE.com (1st) because our clicks on it fund the Alphabet, and it’s now the verb we trust to end any argument.

H is for HACKERNOON.com (6,358th) because I am evaluating pros and cons to “likeminded sponsorship” in the age of internet journalism.

I is for INSTAGRAM.com (16th) because it filters the mundane and they take no shame in the stories of stealing digital products.

J is for JD.com (337th) because why not connect China with the world’s consumers. So few sites start with “j.”

K is for KINOGO.club (256th) because it’s a Russian movie site, and the only .club to be #1 ranked site for it’s letter.

L is for LIVE.com (12th) because we like to pretend that GOOGLE doesn’t have a monopoly on googling things.

M is for MSN.com (42nd) because it ranks higher than it’s parent MICROSOFT (44th) but lower than its brother (LIVE, 12th).

N is for NETFLIX.com (50th) because they set the market rate for the cost of streaming entertainment.

O is for ONCLICKADS.com (31st) because we mustn’t’ forget that eyeballs are made to let our fingers know which ads to click on.

P is for PINTEREST.com (45th) because if there’s a better way to organize images, it’ll be acquired into this alphabetical world.

Q is for QQ.com (10th) because who doesn’t love consuming their Chinese news via endless rows of font 8 headlines with no pictures?

R is for REDDIT.com (25th) because no site structure was ever more perfect for the specific nature of the internet than upvote/downvote.

S is for SINA.com (19th) because wow another Chinese media site… No matter the government, traffic monetizes.

T is for TWITTER.com (8th) because maybe someday I’ll write a letter home saying, “Hey Mom, you won’t believe it, they verified me!!”

U is for UOL.com.br (126th) because Portuguese is a beautiful language and this is the largest internet portal for Portuguese speakers.

V is for VK.com (15th) because Facebook does not own Europe! This St. Petersburg based social network has 369,000,000+ users.

W is for WIKIPEDIA.org (5th) because it’s re-writing any term beyond the dictionary. It’s .com redirects to it’s .org, only one on the list!

X is for XVIDEOS.com(74th) because porn is the driving factor behind much of the internet’s innovations.

Y is for YOUTUBE (2nd) because all video in the history of the world should be on one site owned by GOOGLE, right?

Z is for ZHIHU.com (135th) because questions and answers are the light and dark of the internet. Other than the URL, this site is not in English.

Editor’s Note: Each site is the top Alexa ranked for the letter it starts with, except for “A” and “H” because “AH,” the internet!