Obligatory post about Twitter being down yet again

May 14, 2008 | MG Siegler | Comments |

Dear Twitter,

We need to talk. I build you up with these post about how great you are in situations like the recent earthquake in China. I write long rants defending your value and eventual viability. And then you let me down — with your constant downtime. I feel like people are so close to understanding your value, but it really is important that you be up for them to be able to.

What can I do? Help me help you. I repeat, help me, help you. Do you need more servers? Can you not find anyone to help scale the service? Do you maybe need more funding? We know some people in that field.

I know you’re going to say, “it’s not you, it’s me” — and that is true, but really, we need to work through this together.

It’s been an hour. I miss you.

- Your most favorite Twitter user from VentureBeat

[Note: Yes, Twitter is and has been down once again for much of the day. I've emailed Twitter asking for a comment. I'll update if I hear back.]

update: I see a new Twitter error message (screencap below), so that is something at least.


[photo: flickr/feverblue]

Next Story: LiMo gets new partners including Verizon — an open rival to Google’s Android?
Previous Story: Comcast buys Plaxo to make itself more socially viable

Bookmark and Share

Tags:

Photo of MG Siegler

About the Author, MG Siegler

MG Siegler writes about technology trends and new media for VentureBeat, with a focus on mobile topics, social elements and key news stories. Before that, MG wrote about technology on his blog, ParisLemon. Originally from Ohio, MG attended the University of Michigan where he studied film. He's previously lived in Los Angeles where he worked in Hollywood and in San Diego where he did web development. He now lives in San Francisco.

  • Actually, Twitter wouldn't say, "It's not you, it's me."

    Twitter wouldn't say anything.

    Twitter is the strong, silent type. Well, maybe not strong.
  • I think Twitter has been cheating behind my back, you appear to know it better than me...
  • MG - my question is really around what happens to the apps that now depend on Twitter for their viability?
    http://www.centernetworks.com/twitter-down-api-...

    Last night summize demo'ed in front of 600 ny'ers and now it's not "live" anymore because the conversations are down.
  • Allen - yes that's becoming a bigger and bigger issue, I wrote about it as well a few months ago.

    http://venturebeat.com/2008/01/31/twitters-stru...
  • nice post - maybe twitter shouldn't have become a platform so quickly
  • I feel for the pour souls slaving away at twitter. But, having built similar systems in the past I know it can be done so ... have faith. Hopefully they have both the brainpower and capital to pull through. If not, maybe it's time someone built a competing back-end for all the users, apps and services out there who depends on it. Or maybe not, is there actually a revenue model that works here?
  • sengseng
    maybe twitter is just playing hard to get...
  • That is quite true I believe.
  • twitter needs to manage their IT investments wisely NOW as their product stands to loose customer confidence. They must vastly improve their management of twitter application operations; especially their API code, database, app threading and caching as they have serious performance related outages. So sad that twitter IT management didn't scale this environment capacity to match their burgeoning customer demand.
  • Twitter is having insane spasms lately - what is going on with their infrastructure?

    A more interesting question I always wonder about too is... how does Twitter generate revenue? Maybe they could use some of that for new servers, even though their reliability is well over 99%!
  • abercrombie622
    Why tiffany jewellery is your best choice?Compared with other jewellerys,tiffany jewellery have many advantages.
    www.tiffanyjewelleryonsale.co.uk