Twitter: Down at 8:50 AM CT

January 30, 2008

Ok, I’m just keeping a record of when Twitter is down.  Like now.  The Twitter home page at this time:

image

This is the kind of thing that everyone is worried about when talking about Twitter.  It’s becoming an extremely useful tool, to the point that some people will claim it to be crucial to their daily communications.

Reliability is a key requirement, and I do know from posts on the Twitter Blog and from news that their looking for staff to monitor and maintain solely from the reliability perspective.  As an IT consultant & engineer/architect, I can be patient, I can understand the problems that scaling and massive growth can put on a platform.  However, many simply see these outages as inability to compensate, or worse, neglect.

Twitter’s engineers and management team will prevail, of that I’m sure, but it’s the timing that I worry about.  Even many of it’s most prominent users are becoming more vocal in their concerns about the service.  Shel Isreal posted An Open Letter to the Twitter Guys on what Twitter needs to address.

With all the talk of how simply useful Twitter is, the “Twitter Guys” need to take note of how important it has become to hundreds of thousands (millions?) of people world-wide.  I believe they know, but suggest as Shel does, that they need to communicate more directly, and with more information on what their doing, especially when they’re having some stability problems.  Like today.

Categories: services, social networks, twitter, web 2.0
Tags: , , ,
50 Comments - Leave a comment!
Related Posts with Thumbnails
  • http://www.twitter.com/webdav/ Dave Simon

    Semi-new to the Twitter community, this is my first “Twitter Down” experience of a fairly long term. It’s kinda scary when Twitterific just spins!

    Now I’ll go get work done. LOL

  • http://www.twitter.com/webdav/ Dave Simon

    Semi-new to the Twitter community, this is my first “Twitter Down” experience of a fairly long term. It’s kinda scary when Twitterific just spins!

    Now I’ll go get work done. LOL

  • chris

    it was down a lot during the mac keynote speech. i was a little frustrated too because i get a lot of live blogging from those types of events from twitter.

    i’m sure they notice during big events they are crippled. hopefully they will upgrade their servers soon to compensate.

  • chris

    it was down a lot during the mac keynote speech. i was a little frustrated too because i get a lot of live blogging from those types of events from twitter.

    i’m sure they notice during big events they are crippled. hopefully they will upgrade their servers soon to compensate.

  • http://rickmahn.com Rick Mahn

    Dave, welcome to Twitter! I’m now following – look forward to future Tweets!

    Chris, Yeah, that was a frustrating two days. It was almost worse because you could use the web, but not a client like Snitter or Twhirl. Anyway, I’m not sure what caused it today, but I’m sure they posted on the blog about it.

  • http://rickmahn.com Rick Mahn

    Dave, welcome to Twitter! I’m now following – look forward to future Tweets!

    Chris, Yeah, that was a frustrating two days. It was almost worse because you could use the web, but not a client like Snitter or Twhirl. Anyway, I’m not sure what caused it today, but I’m sure they posted on the blog about it.

  • http://www.lastpodcast.net/2008/01/30/another-day-another-twitter-outage/ Another Day, Another Twitter Outage : The Last Podcast

    [...] the one hand, the fact that this freaks people out is a sign that Twitter indeed is the crack cocaine that keeps the Web [...]

  • http://kyleabaker.com/2008/05/25/twitters-down-yet-again-twitter-is-over-capacity/ Twitter’s down yet again: Twitter is over capacity. at kyleabaker.com

    [...] if it isn’t bad enough that Twitter has been the target of much critism lately due to their poor site stability, they are down [...]

  • http://www.laeuse-infos.de C. Laeuse

    Forgive them for this downtime :)

  • http://bevardis.info/ Bevardis

    O.O

  • http://www.bangthebook.com Dueces

    Ahan

  • http://www.weblinxwebhosting.com RandyBrown

    Nice Site. I am new here but will be visiting more often as you have done a good job.

    Thanks

  • http://www.tdderby.com Ryan

    Forgive them :P

  • http://choseit.com Tyrone

    Yes I would say like Ryan. Forgive them:P

  • http://www.mindsyke.com nick

    hey, love the blog – i will try and keep up with it!! please keep more coming :) I wish I could start a blog but I don’t have much time :( Thanks, nick

  • http://www.dotcom-monitor.com serge network monitoring

    downtime happens with every service i think. there are no webprojects working online 100% of time up. so forgive and forget about it :)

  • http://www.shopfitness.co.uk/rowing-machines-rowers/ Rowers

    I find it quite funny.. anyways forget it and forgive them.

  • http://betonlive.com BOL

    I love Twitter and I remember this down time but it is a case of forgive them and get on with things otherwise life will just become much more stressful than it already is.

  • http://www.mysmsindia.com Free sms to India

    It give a bit strange feeling, but it all depends upon the taste of the user.

    Thanks for sharing.

  • http://www.gatorcoupons.com Baez Carolina

    Great blog – just wanted to give credit where credit is due!

  • Eco consulting services

    Hi,

    Thanks for sharing such a great observation, i’ll try to avoid that time for using twitter.

  • Eco consulting services

    Hi,

    Thanks for sharing such a great observation, i’ll try to avoid that time for using twitter.

  • http://bowo.web.id Busana Muslim

    hey great share.
    i like twitter too..

    Busana Muslim´s last blog post..ka, Sleep Tight & Have Nice Dream

  • http://kredit-24.blogspot.com Steve

    This is a great article which really gives a good look at the overall credit market.Really like your positive attitude for the new year as well!

  • http://rickmahn.com Rick Mahn

    Ugh, obvious you guys really don’t use Twitter to the same extent as some of us. It’s become a critical communication venue for me, and a year ago when I wrote this post, they simply did not have the reliability issues taken care of.

    The other half of it is that I’m an IT infrastructure guy. I know what it takes to plan for and implement for scaled growth of services. They failed. It’s as simple as that.

    Now, a year later, they’ve finally got a pretty good handle on their scaling issues. They had a rocky road for about 4 months last year, and I’m glad Ev & crew have that figured out now.

    Oh, and Steve, I’m glad you liked the “credit market” aspect of this post.
    ;-)

  • http://rickmahn.com Rick Mahn

    Ugh, obvious you guys really don’t use Twitter to the same extent as some of us. It’s become a critical communication venue for me, and a year ago when I wrote this post, they simply did not have the reliability issues taken care of.

    The other half of it is that I’m an IT infrastructure guy. I know what it takes to plan for and implement for scaled growth of services. They failed. It’s as simple as that.

    Now, a year later, they’ve finally got a pretty good handle on their scaling issues. They had a rocky road for about 4 months last year, and I’m glad Ev & crew have that figured out now.

    Oh, and Steve, I’m glad you liked the “credit market” aspect of this post.
    ;-)

  • http://www.gamer-daily.com John Jenson

    This is a pretty sweet blog, i’ll be back for sure. Just thought I’d drop a line. See ya!

  • Ravi

    Well you sure have passion. i wish i had as much as you do but I am working on it. Motivational stuff. Thank You

  • Ravi

    Well you sure have passion. i wish i had as much as you do but I am working on it. Motivational stuff. Thank You

  • Ram

    Simply fantastic. I always wanted to learn more on this very subject.

  • http://www.ufcdomain.info Matt Roberts

    This is a really cool blog! I wish I had found it sooner. Keep up the good work.

  • http://starcraft2.blizzardblogger.com Jeremy Louis

    Nice post! I really like your site design. Just thought I’d drop a line, take it easy!

  • http://www.moviereviewer.info Alex Lage

    Nice post! I really like your site design. Just thought I’d say whatsup. Drop me a line on my blog sometime, Online Movie Reviews. See ya.

  • http://www.pokercoach.ch pokerspieler

    Really usefull article, keep up the good work.

  • http://edit-my-pictures-com/ Edit pictures

    Thanks for the down updates. We have to be patience and wait for repair. Cheers.

  • http://foxmachine.com Foxmachine
  • http://pimpcastle.com/ Tim

    Twitter going down is certainly not good. For me personally, facebook and twitter are the lifelines on the internet.

  • michelle001122

    It has been down only once since I used it. And I think it is obvious as millions of people around the globe have started using it. In time it will improve it capabilities.

  • http://www.lingerieoasisblog.com/ Lisa

    Twitter surely has emerged out tremendously beyond its embryonic stage and size but still has a lot of issues that need to be addressed…but thumbs up for the reliability credits…the 'Twitter Down' experiences happen only on terribly bad days…

  • http://www.seoworkgroup.com Affordable SEO

    Great blog. All posts have something to learn. Your work is very good and i appreciate you and hopping for some more informative posts.

  • cooldon

    Thanks for sharing this nice article.
    Nice post. Thank you for the info. Keep it up.

  • cooldon

    Thanks for sharing this nice article.
    Nice post. Thank you for the info. Keep it up.

  • http://newgames2.com/ Michelle – New Games 2

    I completely agree with you. It is quite frustrating may be because we all are now addicted to twitter. But It is good to be patient and hope they will upgrade their servers soon.

  • http://www.diyetmutfagi.com/ diyet

    hello.. i want to thanks you..
    Very good article. This will really help me thank you..
    can i use this article on my website?

  • http://www.diyetmutfagi.com/ diyet

    hello.. i want to thanks you..
    Very good article. This will really help me thank you..
    can i use this article on my website?

  • http://www.youtubeline.com youtubeline

    i was a little frustrated too because i get a lot of live blogging from those types of events from twitter.

  • http://www.ruyasexshop.com/ sex shop

    That’s a cool and powerful mouse.. but for that price Logitech is nuts for not giving official drivers for Ma

  • turbanl

    Well you sure have passion. i wish i had as much as you do but I am working on it. Motivational stuff. Thank You http://www.pornoata.com

  • http://www.china-kitchen-cabinet-doors.com/ Kitchen Door Manufacturer

    just found this post from the search engine, after a while reading from the top down, now I got new idea for my own blog.

  • http://www.dallasmoversams.com Bobbyhaskell102

    Nice! This is it! EXACTLY!

blog comments powered by Disqus