Twitter is going completely nuts right now. Avatars are disappearing, backgrounds are disappearing, 503 errors are popping up, and yes, I’ve even see a Fail Whale. I’m not entirely sure why this is, and people at Twitter don’t seem too sure either, but I have a theory that it’s to show off a bunch of pretty new graphics they’ve been working on.
The new Fail Whale in the clouds:
The new color birdie default avatars:
The new suspended account birdie:
I bet the official line will be that Twitter’s been tweaking things (say that ten times fast) quite a bit recently, so these anomalies are probably tied to that. But whatever, I think they just wanted to show off their cool new fail designs.
Update: Here are a few updates from Twitter. The API team says:
We are witnessing elevated error rates on OAuth requests. There is a disturbance in the force. We are looking into it.
Meanwhile Twitter support member notes:
Twitter is currently experiencing issues with backgrounds and avatars disappearing. Don’t worry, they will be back shortly.
[suspended photo via flickr/laughingsquid]