I’m actually quite thankful for Twitter being on the fritz lately; it’s really opened my eyes (and a lot of others) about the fragility of web services and how we can’t put all our eggs in one basket in terms of how we utilize them.
I do feel bad (just a little) about those who’s entire lives’ are based on Twitter and who’s primary source of income appears to be the method of spamming uncontrollably their entire network and followers with affiliate marketing ploys and schemes.
Oh wait, I’m not sad about that.
But, on a more serious note, this is a small reminder that if our online strategy is Twitter (or Facebook, or any other social network) then we should be aware of the consequences when they go down (perhaps indefinitely – take for example the recent death of Tr.im).
And that is, perhaps, the best thing that the recent downtime has produced: A reminder that our strategy is not a tool or a service but needs to be something much bigger, sustainable, and manageable.
And definitely something within our boundaries of control.
I personally have enjoyed the “break,” sotospeak, of the Twitter downtime. What about you?
That picture is classic.
Definitely for cutting edge web services. I think that's why I like self hosted. At least if it breaks, it's my fault.
I wasn't so bothered by the twitter outage this time, although i think some tweets i sent from my phone may have gotten lost in the chaos.
Worse is when facebook cuts out just before exams. College students start roaming dorm hallways freaking out at having lost their main procrastination tool. It's very entertaining.
exams… yum.
Indeed. Coincidentally facebook quiz usage seems to go right up in the two weeks before exams.
I didn't even notice until someone twittered it in that twitter has been down. Kind of ironic that last statement.
But, the example of lifechurch being hacked and twitter being down for a little bit drives home your point very well.
I remember where I was when realized that Twitter was down. I had just logged on to the WiFi at Starbucks and tried to open Seesmic. It only loaded Facebook… I quickly went right to twitter.com through both Firefox and Safari… nothing… I proceeded to climb under the table and shake uncontrollably. Thank God my friends who were working that morning brought me over a shot of espresso to bring me back…
pauha! you're alive.
Twitter is a pretty big part of my life, but when I realized it was down I just continued conversations on facebook and other sites. Good thoughts John. Facebook and twitter could both be down tomorrow. What will we all do? It kinda scares me, but at the same time I feel like my life could be just fine!
… fewer repost tweets form John.
peace | dewde
sorry. lame face.