Ok, I love the new, improved and more communicative Twitter as much as everyone else (even if their uptime woes continue to get worse). The fact that Twitter recently launched a status blog to communicate performance issues tells me they’re serious about acting more like a grown up startup.
But notifying us that they’ve “Lost a database” may be sharing too much. Or perhaps a different phrasing may be in order. I know what they mean – one of their three database machines has gone down and they are busy trying to rebuild it. At least that’s what I think it means. When it comes to Twitter, who knows. Maybe they literally lost a database and are busy looking for it.
In a year or so someone’s going to write a story comparing the way FriendFeed scaled to the way Twitter did it (or tried to). Not only does FriendFeed never go down (albeit they are still much smaller than Twitter), they continue to release new features regularly.
I don’t remember the last time Twitter released a new feature. Oh wait, I do. It was search. Except it never launched as promised.
Anyway, if anyone finds Twitter’s database, can you please return it? K Thanks.
(and thanks for the tip Robert)
yikes
Calm down, Twitter will get on its feet, it may take some time but they’ll eventually get this whole thing fixed. I don’t know what it’s going to take but they will do it, the only question is will it take too long and will someone else come along that is able to scale and end up destroying Twitter?
I don’t think so, Plurk has tried and done a terrible job at it, Twitter is the place to go and I’m not sure if anyone else would be able to scale it any better.
Maybe everyone should just ask for a refund. That’ll teach them.
I dont understand what the heck is wrong with Twittr. Why are they having so much scaling problems!! Sure as hell they dont lack the funds to get good servers and hire poeple with the skills to fix the problems.
I love twitter – my hope is that they are are moving forward with stablizing their system. good luck twitter. //g
Michael – maybe. maybe not.
http://www.tech...ated-heres-how/
Alaska – seriously, you need to rethink your notion of free services. They need users to get their big valuations. there is an implied promise to not be lame.
This reminds me of the time when one of our customers reported that the application we had written for them had lost its database connection, and wouldn’t reconnect.
Upon further investigation it turned out that the database server was currently on the back of a lorry being taken to a new data centre.
“Anyway, if anyone finds Twitter’s database, can you please return it? K Thanks.” – LOL!
Luke – that’s awesome.
“it turned out that the database server was currently on the back of a lorry being taken to a new data centre.”
Evan Williams legacy is going down the drain over free 140 character SMS messages. That’s a bit sad. I wonder how those folks that put up $20 million feel?
Twitter’s strength is its third-party apps, which give twitterers lots of ways to Tweet and makes it easier to fit the app into your lifestyle.
So while Plurk, friendfeed, ping.fm, hellotxt.com all improve on Twitter’s availability, none can match its flexibility for users.
I suspect that will keep many Twitter users sticky for longer than would otherwise be the case.
Oh and how many more aggergator/scrapers for social nets do there need to be before someone calls “BUBBBBBBBBLE!”
Michael, comon and let’s be a bit fair. It sounds whiny to tell them they’re sharing “too much” after having ranted for a month+ about how little they were sharing. Too much would be their root password.
This is what you wished for and there’s no reason to turn tack on them when they’re working to improve, just to sensationalize it a bit. How ’bout “Cheers, Twitter, for taking everyone’s advice from the last month about updating you on your epic fails. Now take everyone’s advice on how not to fail so epicly.”
Still snarky, but *constructively* so.
I think Twitter will get their issues straightened out and all of this will eventually be forgotten. They’ve reached critical mass and have a major advantage over competing services. They’ve created their own ‘vocabulary’ amongst Net users and are fully integrated into many people’s lives… already. Unless they are offline for many DAYS at a time, people WILL just keep coming back.
BUT…
Why isn’t Facebook getting criticism? They’ve got to be one of the SLOWEST sites on the entire Web. They consistently load incredibly slow. Or maybe I’m the only that notices this?
Chris – i just would have worded it as a db server failure. the way they described it is kind of funny.
Pallab, I was thinking exactly the same. I know the issues they have with the architecture, but I really am stuck on why they only have three database servers. From the outside it does appear as if they are under staffed and under resourced as far as hardware goes.
I may be wrong about their staffing and resources, but they are certainly leaving themselves open for someone to come in with a scalable solution. I am actually surprised that this hasn’t happened already.
It could be done, and with a better model as well, including many of the obvious features, but why not go further and include a contextual recommendation engine for monetization. That is just off the top of my head, but would go some way to creating some kind of business model besidesthe simply build and flip.
No, I agree. It just sounds a bit nit-picky is all.
And why the hell can’t $15M buy some decent infrastructure and scalability? Aren’t we in a world of SQS/EC2/S3?
It’s a great problem to have but it’s a terrible problem to have for a very long time. The community is only so forgiving…
I once lost a networked machine. I could ping and use it’s services, but I just couldn’t work out where in my house it was…
haha, that’s funny michael, i wonder when twitter will have that fixed… maybe a day… maybe two… who knows…
Haha! The guys behind Twitter made that into a humorous event that gave us something to tweet about.
@Chris
You would think for the last round of funding they had they would be able to employ at least _one_ person with the knowledge and forward thinking to stabilize and adapt the system to cope with demand.
I joined Plurk, loving it so far. Hoping that they get moving with their API and apps before they miss the boat.
If they did lost a database that’s hilarious or bad luck I guess.
Those guys running twitter must be drunk.
I think this blog post was a bit facetious on the whole thing. First, the author criticized Twitter for opacity. Then, he twits them for sharing too much information. Finally justifying the latter on semantics.
Slow news day?
The last line of this article was hilarious.
I hope they find it too.
I just really like the fact Twitter hosts their status blog on Tumblr, a site half their size.
Damned if they do, and damned if they don’t…eh Michael?
Is this the latest news in tech?
I mean – It is not a week without writing about Twitter. C’mon – It is a used service but it’s not worth writing every time something happens.
This is worst than the Yahoo/Ms mess.
I loved this post.
When I saw the tweet from Twitter telling us that they had lost a database, I thought exactly the same thing.
Aren’t they communicating too much?
Being transparent is meant to give the users confidence. And a brutal “we lost a database”, with not much explanation, even being very honest, could scare someone (or more than someone).
I like the new Twitter strategy, but yes, I have to agree with Mr Arrington : let’s mild the tons just a bit.
As far as scalability is concerned, we all know that, in the beginning, Twitter wasn’t expecting to have this big impact and all the users it has now and it wasn’t even made to be used the way it’s used.
That’s why the service is often down, now. They are trying to adapt Twitter to the market that Twitter has created. And that’s a lot of work rewriting, rethinking, and rebuilding.
FriendFeed could look at Twitter experience and market result and build, years later and environment more clear, a much suitable service. Also, as you say, FF is still smaller.
Twitter has the credit of the idea, FriendFeed has the credit of the constant improvement.
Let’s see how it goes.
Hope, however, that Twitter will get back the lost database and also all the users that, disappointed, are exploring elsewhere.
Mat,
I want a house your size.
Ha! and I’m still sticking with twitter… but lost their database? funny and hilarious… is there a lost and found bulletin on the internet? maybe twitter should post it there….
*just saying*
I hope they recover it sooner or they may have to face the wrath of the tweeter fans.
you write about twitter almost every day – are you marketing for them?
Arrington,
Do you feel OK when comparing the scalability problems of Twitter to FriendFeed?
Technically they’re not even a bit of look-alike.
Friendfeed is a pull model application with no real time notification and simply works with content key, not the content itself. It’s far from being real time. A peer feed update can take over an hour to appear on your feed.
On the other hand, Twitter is a pull/push mixed platform with a flood of real time data coming in (you can’t defer it) and resulting an exponentially bigger data that needs to go out, again in real time.
Simply, just tracking on keyword is alone another problem. Even a new start-up could emerge for just this mission. It’s a complicated thing to do and even bitter if needed in real time.
As you know (i hope), Twitter’s biggest problem was XMPP service interface, both for incoming and outgoing messages. Likewise, that’s simply another huge problem area.
If you didn’t had the chance already, please read Eran Hammer-Lahav’s 3-part series, to get a deeper technical insight of Twitter’s prominent scalability problems.
http://www.huen...aling-a-mi.html
I’m sorry but I think comparing Twitter’s problems to FriendFeed is like comparing apples to oranges.
I am seriously disappointed to see such a narrow sighted, bashing oriented post in TechCrunch. I’m sure FriendFeed creators wouldn’t smile when they read that post because they’d already know Twitter is not their competition in the engineering realm.
Those stoners…always losing things….
One of things I like about twitter is they don’t add new features.
Infact I don’t want any new Twitter features, ever. Keep it simple unlike the bloated, confusing FriendFeed
Yes, don’t want to read this, too, would prefer to read: “Techcrunch database lost, all incompetent Arrington rants lost for ever”.
Plurk > Twitter. If you don’t agree with me, it’s because you are a long-established & patriotic Twitter user. I know, I know, it’s a nice site, I’ve used it too, but let go man, just let go
Can I just point out that Twitter is not your mum/dad, and you really don’t need to defend it so much, especially given that the only thing Twitter gives you as a reward for your loyalty is down-time.
Twit me in the face like I deserve, i’ve insulted the un-insultable
This reminds me of the time Arrington posted about how twitter wasn’t very good. Without this insight, where would we be?
Reminds me of a case of “Wheres Waldo”
Look in the following picture – can you find Twitters Lost Database amongst all the bunnies?
http://mcchicke...6-11-19-ubi.jpg
Arrington,
We get it, twitter has problems. Why do you keep promoting FriendFeed? There has to be better material for you to blog about than updating us about twitters every move.
As a reminder, here’s a feed for TechCrunch without Michael’s articles:
http://icanhaz....tcsansarrington
Michael, maybe it’s time to get a personal blog and write about this kind of thing there. It does come across a bit whiny and not worthy of being on the main pages of TC. It was funny wording in the status post by Twitter, but posting about it on TC makes it feel like this is less a technology blog and more like Michael Arrington’s Tumblelog!
@Rick Much agreed. http://www.mikesbitchfest.com
You know there are nice alternatives, I have recently started using Noisewater (www.noisewater.net) They are in their infancy but they are based on Google’s app engine so i feel the scaling wont be an issue like it was when i was on twitter. its easy and simple to use, you just need a gmail account, so i didn’t even have to sign up _again_. So instead of complaining about twitter just find a new server
I did my due diligence (atleast I hope) in catchin up on this thread to make sure the question I am about to ask hasn’t already been asked:
How much does Twitter miss Blaine Cook? I guess I never got the whole story on why he left…
respect for arrington… falling.
urge to kill… rising.
Lost a database, two shirts, pair of shoes and a coffee cup. Message is stupid and they are obviously attempting to mature their operation but is it write-up worthy to pick at small mistakes in communication on their part. Is Techcrunch getting desperate as the web 2.0 funding slows and turning into TechWag??
They probably wouldn’t have as many problems if you would chill out on your freaking Twitter-spam. Dude you have more ridiculous, follow me online, i’m streaming, check out my article bs than anyone else on the system. I find it a little shocking that you complain as much as you do when you use the system as a COMPLETELY FREE e-marketing tool.
Would cost you a mint to toss all the garbage you do across a pay-for system.
Yup I have found that database in my pocket, is it yours?
I disagree. While some PR minded Product Manager could have rephrased this as a “database opportunity” i’d rather have the straight scoop. It builds credibility. My only complaint is that they didn’t close the post. Is the DB still missing? Last seen headed south to Mexico with a disgruntled United Airlines flight attendant, a 12 pack of PBR and the 8 CD set “Grooving to the 70’s”.
Lets not complain about compete transparency Mike. Look at our world. From MLB to the war in Iraq we get lied to on a daily basis. I think people are so sick and tired of being lied too that they respect companies and people more that have the balls to be honest even when it makes them look bad.
I know your a joker but I look at that message and am more willing to stick by twitter than before because they told the truth even when it hurt. Online especially that means a lot to me when you consider how manipulative most websites have become.
Technical people would not have a problem with Twitter’s phrasing here. It’s only business types who need to have their hands held and reassured in soft tones, “it’s not the end of the world.”
Next they’ll say one of their servers “took a crap” and TechCrunch will post an article wondering whether Twitter puts toilets in their datacenters.