Philippinefailblog.com For Sale - $3377.00

Philippinefailblog is back on the market again.

Clicking on the blue link takes you to this page:

See that small print at the bottom? It reads as follows:

Please complete the form below to contact us with regards to one or more of our premium domains. We will review offers of $500 USD or more. 

We will review offers of $500 USD or more?  What?  I thought they were selling. But they want me to make an offer? That sounds mighty shady to me. And guess what? That's because this company is "a dirty cherry picking company."

Connecting the dots, tracing tracks! New Ventures Services Corp is one of those “who is that” kind of “services / companies” that “sells” domain names and nobody really knows who they are. Well, I traced the tracks and all roads lead to Network Solutions/ Register.com / aka Web.com! 

Register.com is a dirty cherry picking company! Domains expire, they cherry pick them, keep some, offer them for sale at higher than normal expired auction prices etc.

http://dotweekly.com/new-ventures-services-corp-who-are-they/

Checking the who.is info confirms that New Venture Services Corp is now indeed the owner of Philippinefailblog.com.

https://who.is/whois/philippinefailblog.com

A few months ago I published an article saying that Philippinefailblog.com had been renewed. If you look at the info on that Who.is the important dates are very different. The site seemed to have been reregistered with an expiration date of 2019-03-28.  What happened between then and June 6th I have no idea.

I emailed New Venture Services Corp for the asking price.

My name is Gillian and I represent New Ventures Services Corp., the current registrant of the domain Philippinefailblog.com. 

The current asking price for the domain name Philippinefailblog.com is $3377.00 USD.  

This offer is valid for seven days. 

If you have any questions or need further assistance please let me know as I am happy to assist with the purchase of this domain name. I am available on Monday to Friday from 7:00am – 4:00pm EST.

How ridiculous is that!?

It seems this is indeed the final nail in the coffin for Philippinefailblog.

How Much is Philippinefailblog.com Worth?

I found this picture on my computer which I had forgotten all about.

The picture is dated November 15, 2017. By then Philippinefailblog had been defunct for 3 months so this information was not current at all. I do not remember where I found this information so I went looking. There are any websites that will calculate a websites worth based on I have no idea what metrics. While I did not find the site where this screenshot came from I did find something else rather interesting.

http://www.siteworthtraffic.com/report/philippinefailblog.com

IN the first pic daily revenue is $572 with an annual take of $208,831. That is impressive if true. The second pic has a daily revenue of $4 and an annual take of $122 and the report says this information is 3 years old. Was PFB only getting 519 visitors a day in 2015 which would be its heyday? 

Is any of this information correct? I have no idea. But it is interesting nonetheless. 

Will There Be A Philippinefailblog Comeback?

Once in a while I head over to Philippinefaiblog.com to see whats happening. Who knows but it might be back online? Today I was greeted with this message.

Please notice:This domain name registration has expired and renewal or deletion are pending. If you are the registrant and want to renew the domain name, please contact your registration service provider.

The domain registration has expired. So long Philippinefailblog right?  Not so fast.

The Whois information says the domain information was updated just 4 days ago on May 2nd. The expiration date is March 2019. Does this mean there will be a Philippinefailblog comeback? Why sit on the name if it's not going to be used?

The End

Originally I had planned to write a history of PFB. Though parts 1 and 2 of this history have been published I have abandoned this plan in toto.  Instead I will cut to the chase about the demise of PFB and forgo a long history lesson. At the end there is a surprise for all. 

In November 2016 Trump won the election and some members of PFB were quite thrilled that war criminal and corrupt-beyond-belief Hillary Clinton did not win the election. I have no idea the conversation that occurred in the comment section of PFB because I did not read them. One day out of the blue the website disappeared.

In it's place was a message telling all that the website was no longer available and had been abandoned for a new website which would focus exclusively on Donald Trump.  This website, http://www.intrumpetence.com, is no longer functional and the twitter page has been abandoned https://twitter.com/InTrumpetence.

When it became clear that PFB was not returning I knew something must be done to fill the void. Another site must rise in it's place. The fact is Philippine culture is not going anywhere while Trump will only be president for 8 years max.  There will always be a space for PFB or something like it. It seemed foolish to me that the webmaster would abandon a website that was one-of-a-kind and likely profitable.

Are these figures for real??

It was then that I started my blog. It was to be a placeholder until PFB came back or something better came along. It was at this time I thought it would be interesting to research and write about the history of PFB. That was January 2017.  By mid-February PFB had returned and was now a social media site. This is a project CaptainPFB had attempted in the past but had also abandoned.

Slowly old members and new began to trickle in.  It was in March that a user signed up and had a conversation with CaptainPFB wherein he laughed at him for "vaporising" the website and ridiculed anyone who would return because the website could vanish again at anytime.  What follows is only CaptainPFB's side of this conversation because by the time I thought to document it the user had deleted his account. So here in his own words is CaptainPFB on why he shut down PFB in November 2016.

Notice two things.  He says he had a meltdown and that there were issues with the server and code injection.  When he restarted PFB he was quick to assure everyone that the website was secure and was "here to stay."

 A few months after this two things happened.

1. PFB underwent maintenance several times in a just a few days. I asked about this and the reply was that an unnamed country was attempting to hack the site and all ISPs originating from said country were now banned but that the website was secure.

2. Donald Trump issued a ban on transgendered soldiers in the military. This prompted CaptainPFB to post a picture in support of transgenders in the military. Being that many of the users of PFB are ex-military expats they were not inclined to agree and voiced that opinion.

There was a total meltdown in the comment section again and only two weeks later the website was shuttered once more.  This time without a note. 

I think it's obvious what happened.  CaptainPFB did not want to play host to a group of old men who do not share his political or moral views.  I do not think it had anything to do with hackers.  And I am not inclined to believe that the website was the target of so many hackers.  It could be true but...well who knows? 

NOW FOR THE SURPRISE

The day after the website went offline I took the following screenshot.

Now you might be thinking: So?

Well I googled that number and this is what came up:

I am not a hacker or a programmer and I have no idea what this number is.  Content delivery network?  Common domain name?  Everything I have tried searching and reverse searching comes up empty.  Probably because I don't know what I am looking for.  But don't you think it's pretty hilarious that PFB is tangentially associated with gay asian sex sites?

The Trials of Philippinefailblog

In our last post we detailed the origin story of philippinefaiblog.com from humble wordpress blog to a domain with it's own name.  In this post we will look at the troubles that plagued PFB leading to its first shutdown in November 2014.

http://itsmorefuninthedark.blogspot.com/2014/11/philippine-fail-blog.html

Now how did PFB go from a website that was only pointing out the deficiencies in Filipino culture and allowing foreigners to vent to a hate blog??

On December 16, 2013 FiloFail declared emphatically that PFB was in fact not a hate blog.

This is evidence that PFB was in fact facing accusations of being a hate blog. The accusations likely coming from Filipinos who had happened upon the site. So what was the source of these accusations of hate?

Perhaps it had to do with the subject matter of the articles and the comments descending into stereotypical ad hominem.

Take this article for instance.  "If you could have a Filipino brain for 5 minutes..."

What is the purpose of this article but to ridicule Filipinos? There is always a place for comedy that exaggerates stereotypes. But is this the purpose of PFB?  

The purpose of this blog is partially for my own personal therapy and venting my frustrations. Many of the comments by readers completely agree and identify with my posts. This blog is just one of many which express the same frustrations and opinions.

Surely there is a fine line between stereotypical jokes and venting frustrations.   But filofail, now FiloFail, claims that PFB has beomce a hate blog.

Did FiloFail want to stop his slide into hating Filipinos? Was the hate beginning to flow through him?Was he beginning to feel the dark side?

Is this venting or is this hate?

Let's look a little further.  Here are examples of posts on PFB before the shutdown and which might give credence to the notion that PFB was becoming a hate blog.

   

 

It's really hard to pin down what exactly caused FiloFail to state categorically that PFB had become a hate blog.  Nearly every post has the same formula: state a problem, curse and rant about it, note how dumb Filipinos are. And the comments follow suit with all kinds of exaggerated stereotypes brought out.  

It's all usually pretty funny. No one is specifically directing hatred towards the Filipino people. I can understand how cursing and ranting can be venting and therapeutic. It's much harder to locate with precision what it is that caused FiloFail to declare PFB had become a hate blog.

Nevertheless, the shutdown only lasted a day.  There is an article posted on Novemeber 5, 2014 and then the next article posted is two days later on the seventh.

With the first resurrection of PFB also came this exciting news:

Now PFB had become a social network. This particular website is now defunct but the current iteration of PFB fully integrates the social network aspect and in fact PFB is more a social network than a blog.

Thus we have a brief look at PFB from March 28, 2013 to it's death on November 6th, 2014 and it's resurrection one day later.

The Origins of Philippinefailblog

What is the origin story of Philippinefailblog.com?  When did it come into existence and why?  We will seek the answers to these questions in this brief article.

Philippinefailblog.com started out as philippinefailblog.wordpress.com.  This page is no longer available.  It has been deleted entirely.  

But a trail of breadcrumbs leading from one blog to the other does remain scattered across the internet.

https://mydsl.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/what-is-wrong-with-pldt-mydsl/

https://www.facebook.com/Clowns-Of-Congress-273284779467794/

And of course the good folks at the internet archive have a copy of philippinefailblog.wordpress.com on its servers.  http://web.archive.org/web/20100501000000*/http://philippinefailblog.wordpress.com

The first capture on the archive for PFB wordpress is May 1, 2010 and it interesting to note that all ten posts are identical to the first 10 posts on philippinefailblog.com. Same publication date also, April 28, 2010.

This begs the question, which came first?  Or perhaps they were both born together like twins. 

The archive's first readable capture of PFB is for June 2013 and includes this bit of information:

With a little more digging the answer becomes quite clear.  The wordpress site was first and filofail, who is now known as CaptainPFB, transferred all his posts over to the new website.

Searching through the internet archive is a bit wearisome.  Not all the information displays correctly and that makes it a real pain to read through.  What is clear is that PFB Wordpress had a regular readership that interacted with site.  Plenty of comments and plenty of agreement with filofail's opinions. 

One recurring sentiment regarding PFB is "I'm not alone."  "I'm not alone" in thinking that this place is messed up.  "I'm not alone" in thinking that burning trash or having fiestas until 5am is beyond rude.  "I'm not alone" in my suffering the barbarities of Filipino culture.

The whois data for PFB lists March 28th as the creation date of the Philippinefailblog domain name. And so with a growing readership, Philippinefailblog was born on March 28, 2013.

It's interesting to note that around the time PFB wordpress was born another Wordpress blog with the same motif was also launched.

https://philippinessuck.wordpress.com

That blog also had lot of interaction and an obviously large readership but the author abandoned the website with the last post being dated April 5, 2010.  And so there was only PFB.  

So much for the origin of the PFB domain.  What about the origin of the PFB idea? Why did CaptainPFB even begin blogging about his experiences in the Philippines? I submit to you that the catalyst for the whole endeavour was his battles with PLDT.

The very first blog post on PFB Wordpress is dated April 28, 2010 and the subject matter is PLDT. On this same date filofail commented on someone else's blog which was detailing their experiences with PLDT's failures.

https://mydsl.wordpress.com/2010/04/21/what-is-wrong-with-pldt-mydsl/

Note that in his comment he claims he had been fighting PLDT for two years. So since 2008, and likely earlier, CaptainPFB had been fighting with PLDT and their terrible service. Perhaps to celebrate the small victory of  now having "a consistent connection every day with no interruptions" he decided to launch PFB Wordpress to document both his struggles with PLDT and his struggles with Filipino culture. He then seeks out this blog which he had perhaps already been following and posts a link to his newly minted blog.  It is also in this comment that we see the PFB domain name for the first time albeit as a typing error on his part.

Fast forward to December 11, 2012.

https://pldtsucks.wordpress.com

Filofail starts a new blog dedicated solely to the incompetence of PLDT. At the same time PFB Wordpress has been growing for two years and is only a few months away from moving to its own domain. Yet CaptainPFB's problems with PLDT are so severe he thinks the situation deserves its own blog.  

There are not many posts on the dedicated PLDT blog and only one of the posts, dated February 22, 2013, makes it over to PFB. A year later there is an entry stating that the site moved to its own domain pldtsucks.com but this website is now defunct and there is no indication it was updated regularly.

So out of much struggle comes success and the fruit of CaptainPFB's struggles with PLDT is PFB.

Philippinefailblog.com Shuts Down Again!

Well it happened again. Philippinefailblog.com has closed it's doors for the 2nd time in just a few months.  Closed in November 2016.  Re-opened in February 2017. Closed once more in August 2017.  For the last time?  Who knows!

Current as of August 9th 2017

So to all you PFBers out there looking for a place to go come on over to my house!

https://philippinefails.blogspot.com