7 ms·

WTF Is Up At Twitter?

58 points by MortonL 15y ago

jgavris 15y ago
I see 503 service unavailable far too often in the logs of my twitter API apps...
SheridanCat 15y ago
I thought that was going to be something and then it wasn't.
nirvana 15y ago
Eternal Vigilance is the price of scalability. Twitter caught up with the curve for awhile, and maybe this is a short term issue, or maybe the curve got a bit more steep, I don't know.
nl 15y ago
Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams have reportedly been less involved in the day to day of the company since hiring Costolo to take over as CEO Err.. this isn't exactly news. From March this year: Well, it’s true and it’s official. Today, I asked Twitter about Ev’s current role in light of Dorsey’s taking over the product lead. A company spokesperson sent me the following statement: Ev decided a couple months ago to be less involved day to day at Twitter. He continues to have a close relationship with the company providing strategic advice and, of course, he remains an active board member. http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/28/ev-less-involved-twitter/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/28/ev-less-involved-twitter/
latchkey 15y ago
I don't think the fail whales have gotten any less frequent. I still see them all the time and I hardly ever use twitter. Just because a few execs leave the company doesn't mean that would cause more fail whales. The real value is the engineering and ops teams who keep the system going. I'd look to see who on those teams have left recently.
- jmonegro 15y ago
  If you hardly ever use twitter, you're not exactly the most qualified one to tell whether the fail whales are less frequent.
  - deleted 15y ago
    [deleted]
- colin_jack 15y ago
  I disagree, they were worryingly frequent in the past but I relatively rarely see them these days.
RyanKearney 15y ago
I will never understand why Apple went with Twitter integration over Facebook. Or, you know, provide an API that lets any application take over social features (Google+, LinkedIn, etc).
jdnier 15y ago
I thought the same thing just this Saturday afternoon when the Twitter home page (i.e., http://twitter.com/ http://twitter.com/) showed nothing but a plain black and white Cherokee 405 error page for at least a couple minutes: http://oi41.tinypic.com/1085ypx.jpg http://oi41.tinypic.com/1085ypx.jpg
beagledude 15y ago
don't forget Abdur Chowdhury bailed shortly ago as well, he was their Chief Data Scientist (although better known for leaking all of the aol data)
- edomain 15y ago
  Nice catch
nikcub 15y ago
Team Dick (formerly known as Team Ev) vs Team Jack the board bought Jack back and he is trying to take over, it seems. this happens to many companies when they get big enough and successful. look at msft post-gates (even during gates, but his authority would overrule deadlocks) and apple etc.
Tichy 15y ago
A ten minute Twitter outage is news now? They must be doing pretty well...
garethsprice 15y ago
Is this just a shift from "startup mode" to "mature business mode" - the startup junkies are moving onto new ventures and being replaced with employees who prefer to work for a more stable company? Could it indicate that Twitter's hardest engineering problems have been solved and they plan on keeping the service lean and simple, so there's not as much need for a large team of people to build new features? This would make a nice change from Facebook and Google, which seem to be straining under the weight of feature-bloat. Or, is it symptomatic of Twitter hitting a dead end and senior staff deciding there's no money/business there? This is all speculation, would appreciate any opinion or insight. Hypothetically, if you were offered a position at Twitter right now, would you take it?

58 points by MortonL 15y ago

jgavris 15y ago

I see 503 service unavailable far too often in the logs of my twitter API apps...

SheridanCat 15y ago

I thought that was going to be something and then it wasn't.

nirvana 15y ago

Eternal Vigilance is the price of scalability. Twitter caught up with the curve for awhile, and maybe this is a short term issue, or maybe the curve got a bit more steep, I don't know.

nl 15y ago

Twitter co-founders Biz Stone and Evan Williams have reportedly been less involved in the day to day of the company since hiring Costolo to take over as CEO Err.. this isn't exactly news. From March this year: Well, it’s true and it’s official. Today, I asked Twitter about Ev’s current role in light of Dorsey’s taking over the product lead. A company spokesperson sent me the following statement: Ev decided a couple months ago to be less involved day to day at Twitter. He continues to have a close relationship with the company providing strategic advice and, of course, he remains an active board member. http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/28/ev-less-involved-twitter/ http://techcrunch.com/2011/03/28/ev-less-involved-twitter/

latchkey 15y ago

I don't think the fail whales have gotten any less frequent. I still see them all the time and I hardly ever use twitter. Just because a few execs leave the company doesn't mean that would cause more fail whales. The real value is the engineering and ops teams who keep the system going. I'd look to see who on those teams have left recently.

jmonegro 15y ago
If you hardly ever use twitter, you're not exactly the most qualified one to tell whether the fail whales are less frequent.
- deleted 15y ago
  [deleted]
colin_jack 15y ago
I disagree, they were worryingly frequent in the past but I relatively rarely see them these days.

RyanKearney 15y ago

I will never understand why Apple went with Twitter integration over Facebook. Or, you know, provide an API that lets any application take over social features (Google+, LinkedIn, etc).

jdnier 15y ago

I thought the same thing just this Saturday afternoon when the Twitter home page (i.e., http://twitter.com/ http://twitter.com/) showed nothing but a plain black and white Cherokee 405 error page for at least a couple minutes: http://oi41.tinypic.com/1085ypx.jpg http://oi41.tinypic.com/1085ypx.jpg

beagledude 15y ago

don't forget Abdur Chowdhury bailed shortly ago as well, he was their Chief Data Scientist (although better known for leaking all of the aol data)

edomain 15y ago
Nice catch

nikcub 15y ago

Team Dick (formerly known as Team Ev) vs Team Jack the board bought Jack back and he is trying to take over, it seems. this happens to many companies when they get big enough and successful. look at msft post-gates (even during gates, but his authority would overrule deadlocks) and apple etc.

Tichy 15y ago

A ten minute Twitter outage is news now? They must be doing pretty well...

garethsprice 15y ago

Is this just a shift from "startup mode" to "mature business mode" - the startup junkies are moving onto new ventures and being replaced with employees who prefer to work for a more stable company? Could it indicate that Twitter's hardest engineering problems have been solved and they plan on keeping the service lean and simple, so there's not as much need for a large team of people to build new features? This would make a nice change from Facebook and Google, which seem to be straining under the weight of feature-bloat. Or, is it symptomatic of Twitter hitting a dead end and senior staff deciding there's no money/business there? This is all speculation, would appreciate any opinion or insight. Hypothetically, if you were offered a position at Twitter right now, would you take it?