What.cd vs. Waffles.fm: Who's got the most torrents? (Slyck article)

[hangemhigh]

What.cd vs. Waffles.fm: Who's got the most torrents?


01/04 2008 | 04:36 PM
Posted by: Janko Roettgers

Music fans have been looking for a new home ever since the legendary private Bittorrent community Oink was forced to shut down back in October of 2007. Many new sites have sprung up to fill the gap, and two of them have become the most prominent:

What.cd and Waffles.fm both follow the spirit of Oink - which, among other things, means that you have to know a user on the inside or scour the invite sharing boards to get invited. But which one of the two sites is more worthy of trading your Grandma invite to that hot, new Web2.0 site to get in?



Thanks to a user who goes by the name of ramier, it's now easier to find out which one better suits your needs. What vs. Waffles makes it possible to search both sites for torrents of a particluar artist and see who is hosting more. Think of it as a Googlefight for pirates if you will ...

So how do the two sites square agaist each other? Here are a few selected results, based on the artists listed in popular internet charts and aggregated to give you a more complete picture:

Big Champagne Top Swaps of 2007, as reported by Wired.com: What.cd has 105 Torrents, Waffles.fm 107. That's a close one.

Coalition of Independent Music Stores Year End Charts Top 10, as reported by Hypebot: What.cd got 359, Waffles.fm "only" 313. Indie rockers know where to go.

iTunes top albums charts 2007: What.cd has 177, Waffles.fm is just shy of this with 169. Another close one.

So what do we learn? Both sites are pretty much tied when it comes to more popular stuff, but What.cd is definitely ahead in terms of indie hits. Oh, and don't bother to beg for an invite if you usually get your music on Limewire, because your "popular swaps" don't mean nothing to the elitist torrent crowd.

http://www.slyck.com/forums/viewtopic.php?t=40760

[poffin]

Hah lol nice site. Till now I've been searching for 3 things on that site and it seems that what.cd wins for me!

[fOrUmAs]

and? what this mean is that both sites are pretty the same with many torrents..

only differents is that whatcd have double more members than waffles

[poffin]

It doesn't have to mean anything, I guess it's just nice to search and see which of the sites wins when you search something lol.

[Schoolboystuff]

Surely it's the site overall that counts, both seem to be very good at what they do. Don't have Waffles myself, but I hear nothing but good reports & What is excellent inc. forum etc.

[IceTee]