Twitter is Over Capacity: Again; Still

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Updated (June 15, 2010)
A new PCWorld link, and a CNNMoney.com link added near end of this post. under "More:"

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That's unfair: I've used Twitter quite often, and on average, it's functional more often than it's not.

However, the latest SNAFU with Twitter is big enough, and is lasting long enough, to make the mainstream news:

"Twitter users muted by maintenance woes"
The Sydney Morning Herald smh.com.au (June 15, 2010)

"Australian microbloggers were uncharacteristically mute on Twitter this afternoon owing to a fault that has taken down the site for almost two hours.

"The site has been displaying only its famous Fail Whale since 1.30 pm AEST after being restored very briefly at about 3 pm. In a status update Twitter said the fault had occurred as a result of maintenance work.

" 'We are experiencing site-wide availability issues due to scheduled maintenance. We're currently working to address the issues, it said.

"The latest outage follows a string of 'networking errors' reported by US news sources last week and includes no timeframe on when the site may be error-free again.

"It does however coincide with the launch of a new features today called Twitter Places that lets users highlight tweets around a given location...."
[emphasis mine]

I highlighted that last paragraph, because I think there's a lesson to be learned here.

If you're running a service business, and have grown to the point where you can't get the basic services to work correctly: THAT IS NOT A GOOD TIME TO ADD SOME FANCY NEW SERVICE.

The fancy new service may be something you like a whole lot, and something that your clients have said they wanted. But they probably want your basic service to work, too.

It Could be Worse

Take a hypothetical diaper cleaning service. It's been growing for several years, and now covers most of a country. The company has a keen new gimmick: lemon-scented 'thank you' notes, personalized with the client's name, with every delivery of fresh diapers.

Just one problem: Dirty diapers haven't been picked up regularly for the last year.

Think about it. What's more important: picking up the dirty diapers and processing them; or introducing lemon-scented, personalized notes to a system that's not working?

Sorry about the rant: I've had a frustrating night.

Vaguely-related posts:

• "Lemming Tracks: Where was the Lemming?"
  Apathetic Lemming of the North (June 7, 2010)
  • About the 17-hour Blogger blockage
• "Twitter, a Frantic Duck, the Carson Mansion, Macbeth, and Branding"
  (May 26, 2010)
• "Well, That's Interesting: Web Strategy Matrix: Google Buzz vs Facebook vs MySpace vs Twitter"
  (February 11, 2010)

More:

• "Twitter's Service Disruptions and Outages Persist"
  PCWorld (June 15, 2010)
• "Twitter can't kill the Fail Whale"
  CNNMoney.com (June 15, 2010)
• "Twitter's Service Disruptions and Outages Persist"
  PCWorld (June 14, 2010)
• "Tweety's Not Feeling So Good These Days -- Network Concerns Plague Twitter"
  World Cup Technology, tmcnet.com (June 14, 2010)